SAN JUAN SACATEPEQUEZ – Over the previous decade, Guatemalan presidential candidate Sandra Torres has been drifting rightward on the political spectrum as she time and again has attempted to win the presidency.
Now, in her 3rd bid, the previous first woman has drafted an evangelical pastor as her working mate and is leaning closely on her company commitments to holding abortion and same-sex marriage unlawful in Guatemala.
Her opponent within the Aug. 20 runoff, Bernardo Arévalo of the progressive Seed Movement, additionally has stated Guatemala’s abortion ban will have to stay untouched. But he has declined to make this kind of declaration on same-sex marriage, pronouncing most effective that his executive can be towards any type of discrimination, with out elaborating.
Torres made a up to date marketing campaign prevent in denims and a countrywide football staff jersey at a college in San Juan Sacatepequez, an impoverished suburban town of greater than 250,000, the place she informed a number of hundred supporters that she sought after the federal government to recognize lifestyles from conception. She promised she would by no means settle for same-sex marriage, briefly including that she wasn’t homophobic.
“I want to run this country with the fear of God,” she informed the group.
Torres, 67, leads the National Unity of Hope celebration that after used to be thought to be the rustic’s social democratic celebration however has moved rightward with Torres, regardless that she additionally guarantees many social techniques to profit the rustic’s “forgotten” deficient. Her celebration is the second-largest within the unicameral legislature.
In the management of her ex-husband, Álvaro Colom, Torres led the federal government’s social techniques, giving her vital executive enjoy. His marketing campaign, plus 3 of her personal, additionally give her an extended historical past of looking to courtroom citizens throughout Guatemala.
Torres used to be the main vote-getter within the first around of this 12 months’s presidential election on June 25. Both of her earlier defeats got here within the second-round runoff. So whilst it used to be no wonder to search out Torres in a runoff, her opponent certainly has come as a surprise.
In the times ahead of the primary around vote, Arévalo, who in large part campaigned on rooting out corruption, used to be slightly within the nation’s political dialog. He used to be polling underneath 3%, in the back of seven different applicants. But the effects gave him 11% of the vote — sufficient to offer him the second one slot within the runoff.
In the primary around, Torres’ festival got here most commonly from different conservative populists. Now, citizens face an actual selection between conservative and revolutionary proposals, and Torres is interesting to Guatemalans’ conservative social values at each and every alternative.
Luis Mack, a political scientist with San Carlos University, stated that Torres’ present marketing campaign is a part of a development around the area of bringing faith into elections. “It is an open manipulation of politics and faith,” he stated.
Torres didn’t up to now have the strengthen of the rustic’s evangelical church buildings, which have been extra carefully related to the management of outgoing President Alejandro Giammattei, stated David Pineda, president of the Guatemalan Secular Humanist Association.
But if Arévalo will have to win, the church buildings can be petrified of shedding the shut dating that they had with the federal government, and may face unwelcome scrutiny in their price range, Pineda stated.
Until he registered as Torres’ working mate, 47-year-old Romeo Guerra used to be pastor of the Christian Sion Mission church based through his father in Guatemala City. An opposing celebration attempted to dam Guerra’s candidacy on the grounds that Guatemala’s charter bars clergy from working for administrative center. But the country’s best courtroom allowed it.
Guerra has now not been a fixture in Torres’ marketing campaign stops and turns out uncomfortable talking out of doors the pulpit. But he lately met with dozens of evangelical pastors along Torres, who has proposed making a ministry of spiritual affairs.
Evangelical pastors in Guatemala have a historical past of siding towards leftists, with a few of them disseminating executive propaganda towards leftist guerrillas in past due Seventies and early ’80s throughout the rustic’s civil struggle.
Shortly after Arévalo gained his position within the runoff, evangelical pastor Sergio Enríquez of Ebenezer Ministries informed his congregation “we have to pray a lot to not allow this communist from (the Seed Movement) to make it.” Other pastors in mega church buildings throughout Guatemala have not been as specific however have emphasised problems corresponding to abortion and same-sex marriage, as Torres has achieved.
In San Juan Sacatepequez on a up to date Sunday, loads of Indigenous girls coated up for a unfastened reusable buying groceries bag ahead of Torres used to be scheduled to talk. Four hours later the candidate arrived in a helicopter.
Torres’ marketing campaign is unabashedly populist, full of guarantees for deficient communities. She has stated that as president she would distribute 1 million computer systems to schoolchildren, scholarships to hide faculty prices and large luggage of elementary foodstuffs delivered per thirty days to households’ doorsteps.
She reminds households that they won equivalent luggage of goods when she used to be first woman, and heads nod.
“I remember her very well,” stated Azucena Sarpec, keeping her 6-month-old in her palms. “When she was in government, years ago, because of her they brought us the solidarity bag” of food, Sarpec said, adding that the promise of more such bags was enough to earn her vote.
She said that since Torres’ ex-husband left power nearly a decade ago, the streets which are mostly dirt haven’t been maintained, and there’s more malnutrition, poverty and crime.
Now, her family has to pay protection money to gangs to guarantee their safety, she said. “They ask for $65 to start and then $45 every month. You can’t do it,” stated Sarpec, whose husband works for minimal salary in an meeting plant.
Lázaro Borror, 38, stated he got here to listen to Torres in order that he can make a decision which candidate to strengthen. He stated he believes Torres would distribute luggage of meals if elected, “but I don’t think she’s going to stop corruption.”
Borror stated he is aware of applicants making guarantees at election time, however then forgetting those that put them in administrative center.
“They only do something the first few months, then they forget us,” he stated.