Global Courant
Ricardo Sáenz de Tejada, a political scientist and anthropologist, maintains that history has taught us that “sitting at a table” with candidates of different origins does not result in votes in a second electoral round.
He warns that abstentionism could increase in the ballot and both parties in contention must be clear that they must go out to seek the vote with proposals, ideas and programs.
How do you see the panorama in the second electoral round, is there discontent or distrust in the TSE?
One hundred percent trust does not exist, and the Supreme Electoral Tribunal lacks one hundred percent credibility. They will recover trust depending on how they handle these post-electoral conflicts, particularly in Guatemala City with the mayor’s office, because according to what they have denounced by the mayors, the processes established in the Electoral and Political Parties Law have been violated and the TSE must resolve this conflict to regain that trust.
Did this process get more corrupted than the previous one?
I think not, I would start a little from the balance made by the European Union observatory, that although the process was seriously affected by the exclusion of candidates due to legal and inopportune decisions, the day developed with conflicts of power in municipalities, but they were very focused .
Will the attacks increase in the runoff campaign?
I have the impression that the attacks are going to intensify, from the very night of the elections and in the days following the elections, we have seen how candidate Sandra Torres has tried to promote a black campaign against the Seed Movement , who comes out making a series of accusations against the candidate Bernardo Arévalo.
There are also the netcenters that are already provoking an aggressive campaign that seeks to create fear by appealing or reporting nonsense, such as talking about anti-communism as cold war discourse and attributing to Semilla political positions that they have not raised.
With this scenario, could abstentionism increase in the ballot?
Traditionally, attendance decreases in the second electoral round, it is something that we have seen in all the processes, let’s remember that on June 25 the president, deputies, mayors and Parlacén were elected, in the second round they only vote to elect the president, so there are fewer incentives to attend to vote that day, the same structures of the traditional parties that are closely linked to the municipal authorities, will have less commitment to promote and mobilize electoral participation on August 20.
Are alliances important for parties in the second round?
The lessons of history tell us that adding acronyms or symbols and seating candidates from different origins at the same table to support a certain presidential candidate has not worked.
It can be seen in the 1991 elections, when Jorge Carpio, to confront Serrano Elías, tried to make alliances with God and the devil, with a diversity of political actors and had no results. In 2011, Manuel Baldizón in the second round against Otto Pérez Molina also sat several political parties at the same table and added acronyms, but it did not translate into votes.
If they make alliances, which ones are viable for Semilla and UNE?
In a system of political parties as pulverized as we are, where we had 28 parties in contention and most of those were unknown or lost registration, they do not necessarily have the ability to endorse their voters. For the Seed movement, making alliances with parties that were rejected by the citizens would be an unnecessary risk.
If it is not viable to seek alliances, what should be the strategy to win votes?
Semilla must seek how to support its political project without alliances that lend themselves to the interpretation that there was an exchange or certain commitments, which at this time may have more costs than benefits. However, there must be an effort to approach rural organizations, peasants, indigenous peoples and their authorities, to share their proposals for the country.
Electoral history shows that the losing political parties in the first round do not have the capacity to endorse their votes because they are not programmatic and ideological parties, so the winning parties must appeal to the citizens with proposals, ideas and programs.
Can the difference in votes between the two candidates be marked?
With what happened in the first round, it is difficult to advance the criteria, but electoral inertia tells us that Sandra Torres loses in the second round, she has done it twice and now she had a lower result than in other processes, before reaching 20 percent. of the votes, now she was left with 15th and she continues to have the highest anti-vote in Guatemala, it will be very close because neither of them had more than 20 percent of the votes, both face the challenge of the invalid vote and the vote in white.
Is there any ideological difference between the two political projects?
I can say that one responds to the coalition of illegal political networks that have maintained control of the State for many years and of which Sandra Torres is a part, because you can see how the deputy bloc has behaved in the last two presidential terms. On the other hand, we see a party that achieved 12 percent of the vote and sees an opportunity to break the status quo and rebuild the rule of law.
