Leftist Colom Still Ahead in Guatemala

[arcos]

Source: Angus Reid

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Álvaro Colom remains the most popular presidential contender in Guatemala, according to a poll by Borge y Asociados published in El Periódico. 25.9 per cent of respondents would support the left-wing National Union of Hope (UNE) member in this year’s ballot, down 2.7 points since April.

Otto Pérez Molina of the right-wing Patriot Party (PP) is second with 15.3 per cent, followed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchú of Encounter for Guatemala (EPG) with 6.2 per cent, and Alejandro Giammattei of the Grand National Alliance (GANA) with 5.6 per cent.

GANA candidate Óscar Berger won the 2003 presidential election in a run-off, defeating Colom with 54.13 per cent of all cast ballots. Berger is constitutionally barred from seeking a new term in office.

<snip>

Who would you vote for in the presidential election?



May 2007 Apr. 2007 Feb. 2007

Álvaro Colom (UNE) 25.9% 28.6% 32.1%

Otto Pérez Molina (PP) 15.3% 10.4% 13.1%

Rigoberta Menchú (EPG) 6.2% 5.6% 4.4%

Alejandro Giammattei (GANA)5.6% 6.3% 5.4%

Read more: http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/15852

[Tempest]

1. This can't be right

According to the rightwingers, Sarkozy's election in France proved that the world is turning back to the right and everyone now loves Bush.

[deutsey]

3. I was thinking how it's interesting that Central/South America are increasingly going left

now that America's sinking deeper and deeper into the Iraqi quagmire.

[Tempest]

4. Bush's foreign policy has been a complete disaster

Especially for Latin America.

Because of Bush, both for his inattention and insistence on the region toeing the U.S. line, Chavez has been able to become the leading diplomat in the area.

[David__77]

7. I don't see a Latin American disaster, I see independence and sovereignty.

What's wrong with countries going their own way and adopting their own democratic social systems? Surely one cannot argue that the neo-liberalism so in fashion in the 90's is somehow preferable?

[BestCenter]

13. No, just Europe, Japan,

and North America (outside of the U.S., of course).

[Greeby]

2. Two words Mr Colom should keep in the back of his mind

Operation Success :scared:

[sam sarrha]

5. looks like Negroponte will be working overtime, a psychopaths work is never done, LINKS>>

his death squads will be back with a vingence..

http://www.powderburns.org/negroponte.html

http://www.serendipity.li/cia/death_squads.htm#Guatemala ...we have been busy murdering in Guatemala for nearly 50 years.. for what..cheap bananas

http://www.oilempire.us/negroponte.html ..see the second article about the rape, brutal torture and murder of Sister Dianna Ortiz, she was a leftist communist because she helped poor children to read.

and then the four Nuns in El Salvador, raped and murdered and buried in a shallow grave beside the road

[jamesinca]

6. You mean like 1954 and the Eisenhower administration

We invaded over bananas then, a leftist is cause for nuclear war now in this day and age of be afraid.

[Peace Patriot]

8. Guatemala was the worst hit in the Reagan wars--200,000 Mayan villagers slaughtered

with Reagan's direct complicity. The worst hit and the least well known. The UN Truth and Reconciliation process in Guatemala has recently uncovered the extent of the slaughter--and the sheer horror of it (children skinned alive or burned alive in front of their parents, pregnant women raped and gutted--horrors beyond belief), and Reagan's awareness of it and assistance to the death squads.

That's a lot of votes, too. Add 200,000 votes--plus kids who might have been born and matured--to Rigoberta Menchu's total.

If you ever wonder why there was an armed insurgency in Guatemala--or a continuing one in Colombia--think what you might be doing if you'd seen your family members or your neighbors skinned alive. And no one else in the world caring.

And the pogrom isn't over. Thousands of union organizers, leftists and peasants have been found in mass graves in Colombia, recently, in the huge rightwing paramilitary scandals there, connected to the top echelons of the Uribe government, upon whom Bush has larded billions of our tax dollars.

At the least now it's scandal. Very different--changed for the better--political scene in Latin America these days. Thank the people of Venezuela, who repelled a violent military coup attempt in 2002 (and many other Bushite/global corporate predator plots). Changed everything. That was the turning point. Now we not only have leftist (majorityist) governments elected in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Nicaragua--and strong leftist movments in Peru and Paraguay--we have a new, growing Latin American consensus on Latin American self-determination and independence. Guatemala--having taken one of the worst hits of violence--has been slow to recover and join this new democracy movement. Fascists and rightwingers are still in control. Colombia remains the other major dinosaur--where Bush has permitted the already suspect US "war on drugs" to become a war on the poor. Clinton "free trade" (global corporate piracy) was bad enough. Under Bush, they've been just outright slaughtering people again. Hard to say which is worse--a slow death through loss of sovereignty, theft of resources, pollution, destruction of local farming and slave labor conditions, or a bullet in the head and a mass grave. Kind of like the choice here in the USA--fascism-lite or fascism-brutal. It's not really a choice, though. It's an alternating current. A one-two punch--with democracy never being one of the choices.

Anyway, Alvaro Colom--a surgeon who has been practicing in the US (in Texas) for many years--needs to be closely watched for Clintonesque "free trade" tendencies. I don't know much about his policies. If he's leftist the way Alan Garcia is leftist, in Peru, it will not be a good thing for Guatemala's vast poor population (with its missing 200,000-plus Mayan villagers). He has a heroic reputation (frequent trips to Guatemala for free surgery for the poor, for instance). And FDR, JFK and RFK taught us that rich guys can be good guys. But personal philanthropy does not necessarily translate into true, democratic, leftist (majorityist) policies. And there is TREMENDOUS pressure by the Bushites and other Corporatists (the Democrats), and their global corporate predator puppetmasters, on the politics and economies of Central American countries (Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras) and others close to our borders, like Venezuela and Cuba. The Corporate Predators have failed on the latter two--and almost everywhere else in South America--and they don't mean to fail on these others. I don't really know where Alvaro Colom stands on all of this. What pollsters and news organizations can we trust to define what a "leftist" is? Not many. (Don't know much about Angus Reid either, the pollster.)

[Judi Lynn]

10. Thanks for highlighting Alvaro Colom. We definitely need to know far more about the guy.

Godfatherbrief look from google. He doesn't sound like a candidate of the people, by any means!

~snip~
Alvaro Colom, the self-proclaimed “godfather of the factories” in Guatemala, is founder and president of the National Commission of Industries as well as president of two major industrial companies. Colom’s experience as director of the National Fund for Peace from 1991 to 1997 and role as negotiator in the return of thousands of Guatemalan refugees earned him the presidential nomination of a coalition of leftist parties in the 1999 elections, in which he finished third. During the current elections, Colom succeeded in attracting supporters from both sides of the political spectrum to his newly created party, the National Union of Hope, by playing on both his conservative economic beliefs and his slightly leftist discourse.

To their credit, the business and political careers of both Colom and Berger are distinguished by the absences of major corruption scandals. But given the structure of politics in Guatemala, both parties were strongly tempted to pact with the military, organized crime, and the still powerful FRG congressional block to tilt the balance of power in their favor in the tightly contested run-off elections.
(snip)

http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Feb2004/kraft0204.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Guatemala is very important. Our own ignorance nationally of the countries our right-wing Presidents were bullying and devastating has kept nearly everyone in the dark at the time these atrocities were going on, to the point so many of us only found out decades after the fact.

We can't afford, spiritually, to bealignedd with suppression and violence against the citizens of ANY of these countries who have NEVER been a threat to even one of us. It has never been a case of national defense, but rather a case of unbelievable racism, inexcusable meddling and barbarity conducted in secrecy because the right-wing Presidents KNEW what they were doing was profoundly WRONG.

No wonder Reagan lost his memory. His conscience finally shorted out!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks so much for refreshing our memories, in some cases, of whom Alvaro Colom is. This is a very important election staring at us from the near future, and deadly important for the people of Guatemala.

[burrowowl]

9. I was hoping Rigoberta would do better

[Judi Lynn]

11. Same here. It may take longer. She is a national, international light now.

No doubt her reputation will grow.

It takes longer for the really decent, good people to become well known, as you've probably noticed. They don't have the powerful a-holes to thrust them into the positions the violent, pushy, greedy right-wing always seek to control.

[MadHound]

14. I was hoping that also,

Perhaps she will get an administration position with the Colom government. It actually makes good sense to do so, considering her work and reputation.

[Peace Patriot]

12. Oops, it looks like I got Alvaro Colom and Rafael Espada mixed up. Colom is

is running for president, and has a background in business. Espada is the surgeon, who practices in Houston, TX, Colom's VP running mate.

Here's wikipedia's article on Colom (whom I know NOTHING about): (--this article says Colom's family suffered a political assassination at the hands of the military in 1979.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81lvaro_Colom

Álvaro Colom Caballeros (born 15 June 1951 in Guatemala City) is a Guatemalan politician, member of the centre left National Union of Hope (UNE). Colom is the son of Antonio Colom Argueta and Yolanda Caballeros Ferraté, the first being the older brother of Manuel Colom Argueta, a former mayor of Guatemala City. He is the fourth of five brothers. He is also the father of Antonio Colom Szarata, the bass player of Guatemalan rock band Viento en Contra.

After gaining a degree as an industrial engineer at the University of San Carlos (USAC) in just three years, he became a businessman involved in a variety of businesses, and a government civil servant, including being the founding General Director of the Fondo Nacional para la Paz and Vice Minister of the Economy before turning to politics. He is also nephew of one of the most remembered Guatemala City mayors,
Manuel Colom Argueta, who was killed by the military in 1979 just after the creation of his political party was approved.

Representing the UNE (Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza) in the presidential elections in 2003 he came second in the first round on November 9, and then lost to Óscar Berger in the second round on December 28.

Support for Colom by middle and upper classes supposedly dropped after he was accused of receiving money from State funds to finance a small part of his political campaign. The check for which he was accused was actually a payment for a service that Fundacion de Amigos del Pais, a NGO supportive of UNE, gave to one of the government institutions and later donated the 500,000 Quetzales to UNE. Later the charges where dropped for lack of evidence against him. Colom has denied all charges and has claimed to be a victim of political persecution and also returned the money he received from Fundacion de Amigos del Pais. As of early 2007, he is #1 in the nation wide polls by a wide margin.

-----------------

Here's wikepedia's article on Espada, the surgeon, Colom's running mate: (--he sounds like a great surgeon; dunno if that will make him a great politician.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Espada

Dr. Rafael Espada is a Cardiothoracic Surgeon from Guatemala. He is well recognized in the field of medicine and is known by many to be among the top 7 surgeons of the world. He grew up in Guatemala. From an early age he wanted to grow up to be a doctor. Espada received his doctorate degree at the San Carlos University (Universidad San Carlos) in Guatemala and performed his surgery internship residency training in general and thoracic surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. He also received higher levels or training from Harvard University, Massachusetts; LeClub Mitrale, France; and other highly recognized international institutions.

Currently he is employed at the Methodist DeBakey Heart Center in Houston, TX. He is has been a professor of cardiothoracic surgery at the Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Espada is known to fly from Houston to Guatemala on a monthly basis, seeing many of his family and some (paying) patients are there. He also travels to Guatemala because he performs gratuitous surgery to the underprivileged. He is known for performing Pulmonary Thromboembelectomies (PFE). He is also believed to have been one of the first surgeons ever to successfully perform a cardiac autotransplant (and to this day has performed more successful autotransplants). He started to raise money for a charity hospital in Guatemala, and has succeeded, currently they are building a state of the art facility specifically designed for cardiothoracic/cariac/thoracic surgery. He performs an average of 10 charity surgeries out of the US every month. His other medical surgery is General Surgery. He performs nearly 1000 cardiothoracic procedures evert year in the US and around 400 in Guatemala. Espada has received numerous awards and recognitions througout the course of his ongoing career including: Honorary Doctorate from the University of Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala, Honorary Professor from Universidad LaSalle in Mexico, Governors award from The Chest Foundation, Paul Harris Award from the International Rotary Society, among many others.

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http://www.angus-reid.com/tracker/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewItem&itemID=14752

(Espada will be Colom's running mate, for VP.)