Guatemala presidential candidate drops out of race
Guatemala presidential candidate drops out of race
Sep 14, 8:07 PM EDT
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) -- Guatemalan presidential candidate Manuel Baldizon quit his political party and dropped out of the race on Monday, leaving a television comedian and former first lady to vie in the runoff to be the country's next president.
Baldizon, of the Renewed Democratic Liberty party, told a local radio station that he couldn't endorse the results of the Sept. 6 vote that put him in third place, but also in a statistical tie with former first lady Sandra Torres, though she garnered about 6,000 votes more than he did. Election authorities hadn't officially announced who had placed second and Baldizon never asked for a recount before quitting.
That leaves Torres to face political neophyte Jimmy Morales in the Oct. 25 runoff. Morales placed first in the vote but only with 24 percent, and the winner needs 50 percent plus 1 to win. A former television comedian, he has never held office.
Baldizon told Radio Sonora that he could not endorse the electoral process and said the results "lacked legitimacy." He said he wouldn't throw his support behind either of the other two.
More:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_GUATEMALA_ELECTIONS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-09-14-19-24-45
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Sandra Torres.[/center]
Here's her Wikipedia:
Sandra Julieta Torres Casanova is a Guatemalan politician who was the First Lady of Guatemala from 2008 to 2011, as the wife of President Álvaro Colom Caballeros. She is originally from the county of Melchor de Mencos, in the department of Petén. She has a degree in Communication Sciences from the University San Carlos de Guatemala and a Masters degree in Public Politics from the University Rafael Landívar de Guatemala.[2]
She was disqualified from being a candidate in the 2011 Presidential election, but in the Presidential election of 2015 she was accepted as a candidate and finished second in the first round of the election on 6 September, narrowly beating the third-placed Manuel Baldizón, and qualifying for the runoff against first-placed Jimmy Morales.
Life and career[edit]
Her mother language is Spanish. She also speaks English and is currently studying K'iche', one of the predominant Mayan languages in Guatemala. She has spent most of her professional lifetime promoting politics, plans, programs, projects and laws concerning social development, specially of women, children and people with special needs. Within the legal initiatives that she has promoted from inside her political party - the National Unity of Hope (UNE) - (of which her former husband is the Leader and in which she is also a director) are:
1.Initiative of Law Against Feminicide. Approved in the first semester of 2008.
2.Initiative of Law of Responsible Parenting. Approved in August 2008.
Sandra Torres de Colom was founder of the Coordinadora Nacional de la Mujer (National Coordinator of the Women) for the political party Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza, through which more than 30,000 Guatemalan women (Garifuna and Xinca amongst them) have channeled their specific demands. The action in favor of women was reflected within the corporate area. Sandra Torres, as a businessperson, worked at private companies and had been responsible for textile production and administration of clothing factories. In her role as first lady to President Colom, Torres took over crucial parts of the government over which she should have had no power according to the Constitution. Former government members who have left office have claimed that she approved or rejected any action of relative importance and that she deliberately managed every single government budget in order to transfer funds to her programs. In Colom's term, millions of dollars were transferred over from education, health, defense and homeland security budgets used to promote the fight against poverty.
She also was president of Consejo de Cohesión Social (Counsel of Social Cohesion), an institute in charge of orienting social investment for the eradication of extreme poverty and combating poverty in general. The group employs programs and projects focused on improving the coverage and quality of education, healthcare, infrastructure, sustainability and national reconstruction (specifically pertaining to the disasters Hurricane Stan, landslides in the county of La Unión, Zacapa, and Storm 16).
More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_Torres_(politician)