Politics in Guatemala is no laughing matter, but that didn’t stop former TV comedian Jimmy Morales from winning a runoff vote to become president.
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TV comic Jimmy Morales, and Sandra Torres, a former first lady, will vie for Guatemala’s presidency Sunday, and the victor will face a tide of public anger at politicians that already drove the last elected president and vice president from office in disgrace.
“The people have made their choice, and we respect it”, she said at a press conference.
According to the Wall Street Journal, with 92 percent of votes counted, Morales won Sunday’s presidential election with 70 percent of the vote – a blowout election.
“He’s like the Donald Trump of Guatemala, never going into specifics about his policies”.
As he concentrated on chopping a tomato, Morales told host Beatriz Colmenares that Guatemala can still go to global courts where “we can fight for that territory, or at least a part of that territory”, though he clearly was speaking only of diplomatic action.
Asked on Sunday what he would do if the CICIG accused him or his ministers of corruption, Morales said he would let any investigations run their course and that “neither the president nor the vice president would be exempt”.
The United States early this year offered $1 billion in new aid to help revitalize Central America – one of the world’s poorest and most violent regions – and stem the flood of child migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. “God bless and thank you”, Mr Morales said in his victory speech.
But now he faces a hard task as his National Convergence Front (FCN) will have just 11 out of 158 seats in the next Congress.
After casting her vote in Guatemala City, Torres sought to tap into the discontent surrounding the country’s political status quo by questioning Morales’ links to the army and Perez.
Morales and Torres were the top two vote-getters in the first round September 6, when presumed front-runner Manuel Baldizon finished a surprising third – a result considered to be a rejection of Guatemala’s political establishment in the wake of the corruption scandal.
Morales promised to keep corruption-buster Thelma Aldana as attorney general and not dismantle the C.I.C.I.G.as Perez Molina had wanted to do. That may have bolstered his outsider image even further; the former Catholic President, Otto Perez Molina, is behind bars on corruption charges.
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During his presidential campaign Morales garnered great support from Guatemalan immigrants, promising to serve not only the 15 million Guatemalans at home but also the 2 million who reside in the United States. Back in April, he barely registered in opinion polls but he soon surged as both Perez’s government and a candidate who was then leading the presidential race became mired in corruption probes. She is divorced from former President Álvaro Colom.
