Moderate Heads for Victory in Guatemala Vote

Christian Democratic candidate Vinicio Cerezo Arevalo claimed a landslide victory Sunday in an election to choose Guatemala’s first civilian president in 16 years.

With nearly half of the votes counted, Cerezo, 43, a populist-style moderate, held a 2-1 lead over Jorge Carpio Nicolle of the National Union of the Center.

“Now we have definitely won. I am profoundly moved,” Cerezo said before throngs of supporters of at the Hotel Camino Real where the votes were being counted late into the night. “Now we will see a new era in this country.”

Cerezo, a long-time leader of the centrist Christian Democratic Party, has vowed to reform Guatemala’s repressive government and improve its failing economy.

Outside the Christian Democratic Party headquarters, about 2,000 supporters lit firecrackers and cheered wildly as reports of the winning results were announced between songs played by a salsa band.

Preference for Cerezo

Earlier in the day, voters interviewed at polls in and near the capital showed a clear preference for the Cerezo.

“I want a government that listens to people, and Vinicio listens to people,” Rolencio Ochoa, 32, said after voting in the town of San Lucas Sacatepequez, north of the capital.

“A civilian government will be better than military because they will improve the country for everyone and not just for the rich and their children,” Aurora Natareno, 50, said.

The military has ruled or controlled the government here for more than 30 years, beginning with a CIA-orchestrated coup in 1954. A civilian, elected to a four-year term in 1966, was forced to yield much of his power to the military to stay in office.

The current president, Gen. Oscar Mejia Victores, like his predecessor Gen. Efrain Rios Montt, took power in a coup. Rios Montt overthrew Gen. Fernando Romeo Lucas Garcia, who came to office through elections widely believed to have been fraudulent.

Mejia Victores has vowed to turn over the presidency to a civilian on inauguration day, Jan. 14.

While some observers believe the military will continue to control Guatemala from behind the scenes, much as it does in El Salvador and Honduras, Cerezo says he believes he can turn the country into a civilian-run democracy and hand power to another elected civilian after his five-year term.

On the eve of the election, Cerezo was upbeat about his imminent success and humorously realistic about the country’s political climate.

‘I Am Not God’

“No one turns over total power from one day to the next. I am a good politician, but I am not God to make miracles. . . . If (the military) does not accept democracy, they will have to confront a war and the possibility of defeat,” he said.

Cerezo said that he would disband a government secret police agency and reduce the country’s massive human rights violations in his first six months in office, “or there will be a coup d’etat . . . and you will interview me in Miami.”

He also vowed to end government corruption, which he estimates consumes 25% of the national budget.

Guatemala is in the midst of its worst economic crisis since the Depression with 50% under-employment and unemployment, 35% inflation and a $3.5 billion foreign debt. The value of its currency, the quetzal, has fallen dramatically after 50 years of stability.

The country has been isolated internationally because of the military’s human rights violations during its counterinsurgency war against leftist guerrillas in which an estimated 50,000 civilians have died or disappeared.

The United States backed the presidential elections with at least $556,000. Congress has approved $90.9 million in military and economic aid this year, provided that a civilian president is inaugurated and human rights improvements can be shown.

But Cerezo said that Guatemala needs $300 million in loans and credits in the first six months of 1986 to confront its economic crisis.

No Winner in First Round

An official team of U.S. observers said that Sunday’s voting appeared to be fair and efficient, as it was during the first round Nov. 3. In that round, Cerezo was the front runner among eight candidates with 38.6%. Carpio was second with 20.2%. The runoff was required because no candidate polled 50%.

With 42.5% of the votes counted Sunday, Cerezo had 478,245, or 66.7%, of the valid votes and Carpio had 239,000, or 33.3%. Another 453,410 ballots were marked no or left blank.

The ultra-right in Guatemala, traditionally allied with the military, has been split in this campaign and apparently did not unite behind Carpio, whose party is more conservative than the Christian Democrats.

Carpio, 53 a newspaper owner, ran a campaign accusing Cerezo of being a leftist and saying he would lead the country down the path of El Salvador to prolonged civil war. Because the Christian Democrats won a majority of seats in the Legislative Assembly last month, Carpio asserted that they would have absolute power and, therefore, become corrupt.

Cerezo largely ignored the charges and ran a populist-style campaign for democracy and peace.