Comedian-turned-politician Jimmy Morales is poised to become Guatemala’s next president, according to preliminary election returns.
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“In the name of the Mexican people, I congratulate Jimmy Morales for his triumph in the presidential election of Guatemala”, Nieto said in a statement. ‘Thank you for this vote of confidence. “I promise that as president I won’t make you cry”.
His manifesto runs to just six pages, giving few clues as to how he might govern, and his FCN party will have just 11 out of 158 seats in the next Congress. The ruling party candidate, John Magufuli, battled a former prime minister, Edward Lowassa, who defected to the opposition earlier this year, in a presidential race that was too close to predict. Results are expected within four days.
He has however called fighting corruption his biggest aim.
Morales, from the National Convergence Front (Frente de Convergencia Nacional), racked up 68.52 percent, with a total of 2,699,977 votes, while Torres, of the UNE (National Unity for Hope) party won 31.48 percent with a total of 1,240,408 votes, on a turnout of about 54 percent. Former first lady Sandra Torres, 59, who was trailing with almost 31% of votes, conceded late Sunday night.
His economic team is to meet Monday with congressional leaders to lay out his spending priorities for the next year, including funding for nutrition programs, the resupply of public hospitals suffering from shortages of medicines, and support for production.
“The next president must at least purge the police and clean up the government”, he said.
Voters pointed to widespread discontent with Guatemala’s political class, compounded by a UN-backed investigation into a multi-million dollar customs racket that led last month to the resignation and arrest of former president Otto Perez.
Investigators first targeted former Vice-President Roxana Baldetti, whose personal secretary was named as the alleged ringleader of the scheme, and then Perez Molina.
“We’ve got to give him an opportunity”, said carpenter Gilberto Maldonado, 40. Guatemala ranks 115 out of 175 countries in the corruption perceptions index of global Transparency-one of the worst positions in the region.
With one of the region’s lowest tax rates, Guatemala has weak, under-financed public education and public health systems, burdensome public debt and declining revenues.
Tens of thousands of Guatemalans took to the streets to pile pressure on Perez over the CICIG findings, and Morales would risk quickly losing support if he moved against the commission. Morales did not apologize, writing it off as an innocuous joke appreciated by people of all backgrounds, says the Guardian.
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“It’s his Achilles’ heel”, said Christians Castillo, a political analyst at National Problems Institute, a think tank at the University of San Carlos. “That could generate protests once again”.
