Guatemala

In response to your editorial “Don’t Hold Your Breath: New Guatemalan government may not be the answer to decades of repression” (Jan. 21):

Since the military discovered that the easy way to keep Guatemala under its control is to permit a civilian to be the president of the country--as a facade, naturally--the choice for voters is not a democratic decision, because the authorized candidates are from right-wing parties only, accepted for their “I-won’t-rock- the-boat” attitude toward the armed forces and, in return, the “elected” president and his group will have a free hand for any kind of illegal enrichment.

In the past election, out of 3,204,955 registered voters, Jorge Serrano received 936,389 votes and Jorge Carpio 438,990, for a total of 1,375,379 votes; considering that 74,110 were voided or blanks, the total is not even close to 50% of the registered votes.

As usual, Guatemalan people didn’t vote, because they knew they wouldn’t make a difference, there was not a free candidate or, simply, they had lost interest in anything that is not related to their own survival.

A. GODOY, Los Angeles