Guatemalan candidate faces ungodly fight

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Alvaro Colom wants you to know that he is not the devil.

Colom, the candidate of the center-left National Unity for Hope, is leading in the polls ahead of Guatemala’s Sept. 9 presidential election. His detractors have been sending mass emails with PowerPoint presentations that show him dressed as the devil, pointing out that Colom spelled backward is Moloc, the Prince of Hell in Christian mythology (in English more commonly spelled Moloch).

After countless Internet megabytes, and with the rumors spreading in the Guatemalan media, Colom finally decided to fight back this week. In a press release entitled ‘Clarification to the People of Guatemala,’ Colom states: ‘I ask the people of Guatemala not to take seriously the acusations against my person, since I am not, nor do I represent, the devil, or Satan. Nor am I the evil biblical god Moloc. I am Alvaro Colom, a Mayan priest who aspires to lead Guatemala as your president.’

Yes, Colom is the rare non-Mayan initiated as a Mayan priest. This happened a couple of decades ago. He keeps an altar at his home, where he burns incense with ‘the sacred fire of nature.’ In his press release, Colom acknowledges that his Mayan altar might be one source of the rumors. ‘If these offerings and rituals were diabolical or evil, do you think I would expose my wife and children to damnation and diabolical forces, or to the punishment of Our Lord God, just as the Bible warns us? Of course not!’

Posted by Héctor Tobar in Mexico City