Centrist Wins First Round in Guatemala Vote

Christian Democrat Vinicio Cerezo Arevalo won the first round of Guatemala’s presidential election with a surprising margin of nearly 2 to 1 over the runner-up, officials announced Monday.

Cerezo promptly urged his top opponent to drop out of the runoff, which he called “a formality.” But second-place finisher Jorge Carpio Nicolle of the National Union of the Center said he will stay in the race to become the country’s first civilian president in 16 years.

The first round of the election was held Sunday and the runoff is scheduled for Dec. 8, barring any last-minute deals between the two candidates.

With about 66% of the ballots counted Monday evening, Cerezo had 444,942 votes, or 39%, to Carpio’s 233,812 or 20.6%, according to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.

Eight Candidates

In third place out of the eight candidates was Jorge Elias Serrano, a conservative Protestant leader, with 14% of the vote. The National Liberation Movement’s candidate, Mario Sandoval, a longtime leader of the extreme right, came in fourth with 11.5%. The movement has often been allied with the military.

The Democratic Socialist Party candidate, Mario Solorzano, who returned from exile to run for president, did better than expected, earning 4% of the vote.

Both Cerezo and Carpio said they believe that Sunday’s election was clean and fair.

“This is a great step toward real democracy in Guatemala,” Cerezo said. “The military did not intervene.”

Guatemala has been ruled directly or indirectly by the military since a civilian president was ousted in a CIA-orchestrated coup in 1954. A civilian held office from 1966 to 1970, but most power remained in military hands.

Vows to Respect Vote

The current president, Gen. Oscar Mejia Victores, has vowed to respect the outcome of this election and to turn over the presidency to the winner Jan. 14, but many Guatemalans doubt that the military really will relinquish power.

Although human rights workers estimate that 30,000 to 50,000 Guatemalan civilians have died or disappeared in the army’s war against leftist guerrillas since 1978, both Cerezo and Carpio have said they will not push for prosecution of the military for past human rights abuses.

“It would be difficult to prosecute,” Cerezo said in a pre-election interview. “I would have to put the whole army in jail.”

‘National Cooperation’

At a press conference Monday, Cerezo, 43, a political centrist, proposed forming “a government of national cooperation,” including some people from Carpio’s more conservative National Union of the Center.

Cerezo added: “I will ask for my closest opponent to give up the opportunity to run in a second round. . . . A second round will be only a formality.”

Carpio, 52, did not reject coalition talks but said he will stay in the race because the law says the winner must have a majority of the vote and Cerezo did not earn a majority Sunday.