GUATEMALA, the country with the largest population -- 14 million people -- within the Central American Common Market (CACM) and its third largest nation, (68,056 square miles), went to the polls November 9 in elections that were considered of supreme importance to the future of the nation and the entire subregion.

Former Guatemala City Mayor Oscar Berger with nearly 40 per cent of the votes, and businessman Alvaro Colom with almost 30 per cent of the electoral preferences, will advance to the final round for the presidency of the Republic that will take place on December 28.

The controversial presidential candidate, hard-liner and former dictator Efrain Rios Montt, got less than 15 per cent of the votes, in a clear demonstration that the Guatemalan people overwhelmingly rejected a return to the past.

Before the election there was a persistent environment of fear that hard-liners supporting Rios Montt were planning to disrupt the election by force if the outcome was not in their favour. Perhaps the massive turnout thwarted the ultra-rightist plans.

During the second half of the 20th century, Guatemala endured a series of authoritarian civilian governments, a military dictatorship, and great instability in the society. Prolonged guerrilla warfare and a counter-insurgency reaction lasted 36 years and ended in 1996 when the government signed a peace agreement with the rebel organisations, thus formally ending the conflict which had taken the lives of more than 200,000 Guatemalans and left more than one million refugees within a battered country.

The Guatemalan economy has been traditionally based on exports of bananas, coffee, sugar, and other tropical crops, although the country also has vast resources of nickel and petroleum. The agricultural exports have enriched the traditional elite and created a small privileged class, while the majority of the population has remained very poor, especially the native people.

The country has been full of social inequities since colonial times, and it is only since the 1980s that a movement towards a more democratic, more inclusive and more civilian society, based on the rule of law, has gained more political and societal space.

According to historians, social scientists and university scholars, Guatemala's modern culture is a unique product of Native American Indians (Mayas) and the Spanish colonial heritage. Around 50 per cent of the population is recognised as mixed (mestizo): people of mixed Spanish and indigenous ancestry, and the other half consider themselves of pure Amerindian ancestry.

Deeply rooted in the countryside and the rural highlands, many Amerindians speak a Mayan language, follow traditional Mayan religion and village customs, and continue their rich cultural traditions in textiles and crafts. The Indians are among the poorest inhabitants, and this situation has produced much of the tension and violence that have existed throughout the history of Guatemala.

It is interesting to note that the difference between mestizos and pure Amerindians is much more a matter of culture than of biological bloodlines. Amerindians who adopt Spanish as their primary language and practise traditional European (white) customs come to be regarded as mestizo, regardless of their biological background. That is why it is not easy or virtually impossible to differentiate a mestizo from an Indian.

Mestizos, along with the dominant white minority (one per cent of the population), are those who still control the economy and the social and political life of Guatemala. There are also some African-Americans in the country, especially in the coastal regions including small communities of garifunas (black Caribs) on the Caribbean coast.

According to various human rights organisations present in the country for the past elections, people were really motivated and encouraged to exercise their right to vote. At least in part because they wanted to reject both former dictator General Rios Montt and the current party in power since 1999.

Human rights activists and journalists agreed that Rios Montt's defeat at the polls showed the voters' firm rejection of the man who had allowed massive human rights' violations, including massacres of whole communities during the civil war.

However, the vox populi in Guatemala indicates that whoever wins the December 28 run-off will face serious challenges, especially from organised crime linked to drug trafficking known as the "hidden powers", because it is believed that sectors of the military and security forces, and officials in the state and judicial system form part of this organised crime or hidden powers.

The other big challenge is to address in a proper manner the issue of continuing poverty, destitution, inequality and marginalisation existing in the country, especially among the indigenous people.

Another important challenge has come from the international community. The United Nations has proposed to the Guatemalan government the formation of a special investigative body led by a UN official, whose fundamental tasks would be the identification and prosecution of individuals involved in organised crime and human rights abuses.

Celebrating his victory in the first round, Oscar Berger pointed out, "Today we begin to change Guatemala, to bring about an end to the corruption and cheating". He also condemned the culture of impunity that reigns in Guatemala.

Berger and Colom have both promised that whoever wins the presidency will support the UN proposal. Only time will tell, but Guatemala and other countries in the Latin American and Caribbean region are now involved in a strong and deep process of democratisation with economic and social reduction of the historical gap between the haves and the have-nots. At the same time, this process is working towards a revalidation and restructuring of the ethnic sharing of power.

Oscar Berger

Guatemala and other Central American countries

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