By Simon Granovsky-Larsen
Briarpatch Magazine
February 2008
With the dust of the fall 2007 elections settling, many Guatemalans are breathing a sigh of relief. Another violent campaign period has come and gone and, although more than 50 candidates and activists were assassinated in the process, the lesser of evils has come out on top. Alvaro Colom and the National Alliance for Hope (the Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza, or UNE) won the presidency in a November run-off vote that pitted Colom’s social platform against the militaristic approach of former general Otto Pérez Molina. In the still-violent aftermath of the recent civil war, the elections represented a choice between rebuilding government institutions and responding forcefully to spiralling violent crime.
