Global Courant
The ruling party did not have enough votes to reach the second round of general elections, but the deputies did get the support that Manuel Conde could not capitalize on and they are about to become the majority bench of the future tenth legislature.
Vamos por una Guatemala Diferente (Vamos) obtained 38 seats for the Legislative Branch; it obtained 618 thousand 126 votes in favor of its deputies for the national list, and its district deputies made 696 thousand 415 votes.
Both for the national list and for the district councils of Vamos, they obtained a difference of close to 200,000 votes over Manuel Conde for the presidency, who only got 435,631 votes, an insufficient number to reach the second round.
In none of the districts did Manuel Conde lead the votes as a presidential candidate, contrary to the candidates for deputies who led in 14 districts on the national list, and in 11 for the district councils.
Also in 11 districts the support for the pro-government deputies for the national and district list coincided, being the following: Chimaltenango, El Progreso, Santa Rosa, Sololá, Quetzaltenango, Suchitepéquez, San Marcos, Huehuetenango, Quiché, Izabal and Jutiapa.
Experts consider that there may be at least three possible scenarios that explain the reasons why the ruling party came out stronger after the elections by maintaining continuous wear and tear in the current legislature.
municipal machinery
The first theory maintained by Alejandro Valverth, director of the Legislative Observatory, is that the great municipalist machinery worked at the departmental level, with which Vamos assured that he was going to win the presidency.
“There was a lot of movement from the mayors and that is why it may be that linear vote between mayors and deputies, because the mayors are ultimately the ones who run the campaign,” Valverth explained.
For his part, Jorge Wong, an independent political scientist, also believes that the regional let’s go strategy gave results, mainly at the provincial level.
“They got support from the mayors and this gave them a big push, because despite the poor performance that the government has had, getting a fourth place without performance, I consider that they had, from their point of view, a successful campaign,” he said.
presidential rejection
The director of the Legislative Observatory believes that the municipal tactic did work, but adds that this victory was not reflected in Conde’s favor because the record that the current administration is leaving caused a large part of the population to issue a “punishment” as a sign of rejection.
“There is a vote of punishment for Vamos, because they support the mayor, they also support the deputy, due to ignorance, but for the president there is a vote of distrust because they do not agree with the policies adopted by this government,” he said.
During the administration of Alejandro Giammattei with Vamos, public force was used against civilians in the demonstrations of November 2020, problems in the health network due to the pandemic, together with an increase in the price of fuel, to name a few cases.
Wong, also consider that the bad work in front of the executive took its toll, “people said that not with the pairing, because the president did nothing so we are going to punish him, but in the councils this phenomenon did occur because it is something very personal , then people voted more for the person than for the party”.
Carries and vote buying?
For the political scientist Jorge Wong, there is a third scenario, in which it is impossible for him to delve into since there is no documentary evidence for them, but they are actions that some political organizations have resorted to in the past.
It refers to the hauling of votes, although it is clear that there are no indications to confirm this hypothesis, likewise rumors on social networks about the sale of votes is something that makes noise in the elections of June 25, but this point It will have to be analyzed by the Public Ministry (MP) and the authorities of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), to confirm or rule out events of this type for the 2023 elections.
Some faces from Vamos
The ninth legislature has had two presidents; Allan Rodríguez and Shirley Rivera, both got their re-election despite the fact that at the time there were voices against their management as head of parliament.
Rodríguez was re-elected by the Sololá district, but in the opinion of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), of the United States Department of the Treasury, the deputy is an actor in favor of corruption.
The parliamentarian was sanctioned by the Magnitsky law at the end of last year, but despite this his district supported him, the support was such that Luis Rodríguez, Allan’s brother, also obtained a position as deputy for Sololá.
Boris España, who was part of the ranks of the Todos party, got his re-election with Vamos for the Chiquimula district, he appears on the Engel list, of the United States Department of State, for being labeled as an actor in favor of corrupt behavior .
Another deputy included in the Engel list is Sofía Hernández, who manages to remain in Congress thanks to Vamos when she was elected for the Huehuetenango district, she was part of the now-defunct Unión del Cambio Nacional (UCN), the party of Mario Estrada who is serving a sentence in United States for acts related to drug trafficking.
Among the future bench of Vamos are other deputies who entered through UCN, including Napoleón Rojas, Sandra Orellana and Erick Mazariegos.
Duay Martínez and Cándido Leal, who have approved the budget opinions and any budget expansion requested by the Executive from the Finance Commission, will continue in Congress.
Also Carlos Roberto Calderón and Sergio Arana will continue a new period as deputies. The MP investigates the death of a young woman near Calderón’s apartment; and filed a preliminary trial against Arana for an alleged violation, these are inquiries into two different facts.
