Serrano Next President of Guatemala : Central America: Winner of a runoff, he is to take office Jan. 14. He plans a ‘national unity’ government.

The Guatemalan Electoral Tribunal declared Jorge Serrano Elias winner of a presidential runoff election Monday, paving the way for the first succession of one elected civilian president by another elected civilian in the nation’s history.

Electoral Tribunal President Arturo Herbruger told reporters that Serrano is the “future president of Guatemala.”

With nearly 95% of the votes counted by Monday morning, Serrano, an evangelical Protestant leader and candidate of the Solidarity Action Movement Party, had 901,081 votes, or 68%, compared to 420,711 votes, or 32%, for his rival, newspaper editor Jorge Carpio Nicole of the National Center Union party.

Serrano takes office Jan. 14 from outgoing President Vinicio Cerezo Arevalo for a five-year term.

“This is the most important step in the consolidation of democracy in our country . . . and it is thanks to you, my dear Guatemalans who knew how to defend democracy,” Serrano told thousands of cheering supporters Sunday night.

Serrano, an industrial engineer of Libyan descent, said in his victory speech that he will form a government of “national unity,” adding that “the moment has come to work for the salvation of Guatemala.”

Carpio, a Roman Catholic, the professed faith of a majority of Guatemala’s population, conceded his defeat.

Serrano, 45, stayed away from religious issues during the campaign and promised to lead a secular government. He became an evangelist at the age of 28 and belongs to Guatemala’s El Shaddai Protestant Church.

Serrano withdrew from the leadership of the Protestant church in order to enter politics, but he regularly attends services.

No violence was reported during Sunday’s voting, but voter participation was low.

Sunday’s runoff was necessary because none of the 12 presidential candidates won a majority in the Nov. 11 general election. In the November election, Carpio garnered 25.7% and Serrano 24.2% of the vote.

The president-elect faces serious problems that Cerezo, whose election in 1985 ended decades of only rarely interrupted military rule, was unable to fix.

Serrano said his government will fight for peace and liberty and make all efforts to improve the image of Guatemala abroad that has been tarnished by human rights violations in the Central American nation.

An estimated 100,000 people are thought to have been killed in political violence over the past 30 years, and at least 30,000 people have disappeared.

During his campaign, Serrano said he would seek a negotiated solution to his country’s nearly 30 years of sporadic guerrilla war. He also promised to bring the politically powerful army under civilian control.

The economy is in shambles, too. The country is battered by 59% annual inflation, and its foreign debt is $2.8 billion. Unemployment stands at 41% of the work force.

Serrano has said he will promote foreign investment and privatize state companies to increase growth. He said he plans to meet with the leaders of oil-producing Mexico and Venezuela to find a “regional solution” to the energy crisis.

BACKGROUND

Friends and foes alike describe Jorge Serrano Elias as a strait-laced technocrat, a proud and prickly man. Some compare him to former President Jimmy Carter, also a deeply religious man with a taste for administrative detail. “Jorge runs the risk of the details blinding him to the larger problems,” Serrano’s onetime boss, former President Efrain Rios Montt said in a recent interview. The son of a congressman, Serrano has had political ambitions since his youth. He first caught the public eye during Rios Montt’s dictatorship, when he headed the Council of State that Rios Montt set up after suspending the constitution and dissolving the Congress.