The stakes in the upcoming November 9 elections in Guatemala are high – they include open seats for the Presidency and Vice Presidency of the Republic, 158 congressional seats, 20 seats for the Central American Parliament, and 331 mayors. Since the Guatemalan electoral season officially began on May 15, the process has been characterized by recurrent violence, confusion, intolerance, polarization, and disrespect for the Guatemalan Constitution and rule of law.

Observers have recorded numerous acts of violence that generate widespread feelings of insecurity and fear among the public. Political parties have used violence as an instrument of partisan politics, the clearest example being the violent riots that took place on July 24 and 25, which have been attributed to the national leadership of the ruling Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) party. 1

Efraín Ríos Montt’s presidential candidacy for the FRG has also affected the normalcy of the electoral process. Having taken power in a coup in 1982, and currently accused of genocide, questions regarding the legality of his candidacy have caused a level of instability and doubt about the transparency of the electoral process. 2

To respond to these concerns, for the first time in Guatemala’s history, citizen groups have formed a coalition – Mirador Electoral 2003 – to run a national system of election monitoring. 3 Every two weeks Mirador Electoral issues a report analyzing the current electoral process. The synthesis provided here focuses on concerns raised in their first four reports (July 28 – Sept. 25) specific to electoral violence, fraud, and the insufficient dissemination of electoral information to the public. It also includes information gathered from other sources, including the Organization of American States (OAS) and the United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA).

A. Electoral Violence
The level of violence in this year’s elections has been extraordinary. Since May 15, 20 political leaders and activists have been murdered; 13 have received death threats; another 13 have survived gunshot wounds; 11 have been the victims of physical and psychological intimidation; 9 have had their homes or vehicles fired upon; and 3 have had their homes broken into. In addition, at least 16 journalists have been the recent targets of threats and intimidation, inhibiting the media’s ability to impart important electoral information to the public.

An undertone of violence has been particularly noticeable in the countryside. Mirador Electoral observers have documented political parties’ engagement in provocative actions, such as holding contentious rallies in areas affected by the armed conflict, which generate fear and internal divisions. SEDEM has documented and denounced perhaps the most egregious example of this type of activity.4 Prior to many FRG rallies, special police units round up community members, leading them to the rally area, while FRG candidates fly overhead in helicopters. For many community members, this police action evokes memories of the counterinsurgency war, when the military would descend via helicopter and entire communities would be rounded up, only to be massacred. Whether intended or not, the FRG’s activities intimidate local populations into supporting the FRG.

Concerns have also arisen regarding the impartiality of security forces at these events. In some conflictive circumstances involving the FRG, national police have provided protection exclusively to presidential candidate Ríos Montt (San Juan Sacatepéquez, Panzós, and Ixcán), while ignoring acts of intimidation against others. The Inspector General of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) recently sent letters to the Ministers of Defense and Interior, asking them to explain why so many ministry personnel have been present only at FRG rallies.

Other parties cannot exercise their rights to freedom of assembly and expression in the countryside, because many communities are too afraid to participate openly in election campaign activities. Mirador Electoral is concerned that ongoing violence may even discourage citizens from voting altogether, which would “negatively affect the elections since citizen participation is the principal guarantee for ensuring a democratic process.” 5

Throughout the electoral period, the FRG has stood out in its willingness to utilize violence for political purposes. Evidence exists that FRG party leadership orchestrated the violent riots of July 24 and 25. More recently, FRG sympathizers spent nearly two hours physically and verbally assaulting Rigoberta Menchú and other human rights defenders in the courtroom of the highest court of the land – the Constitutional Court. The activists were present to challenge the court’s rulings allowing Ríos Montt’s registration and forbidding all lower courts from hearing appeals on the issue. As more than 200 FRG followers began attacking the activists, the president of the Constitutional Court fled his own courtroom, making no attempt to restore order. Nearby police also did nothing. Mirador Electoral has urged the authorities to properly and expeditiously investigate both FRG-related incidents and determine legal responsibility for these actions.

Unfortunately, conducting such investigations is not always easy. For example, only hours before finishing a report on the July 24 and 25 riots, the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office (PDH) was broken into and key documents and equipment were stolen. Phillipe Combescot, Chief Mission of the European Commission at the time, expressed his firm conviction that criminal parallel powers who work “behind the official party [FRG]” were responsible for the break-in, noting, “It’s a clear demonstration that they want to eliminate any evidence that might compromise sympathizers and those affiliated with the FRG.” 6The OAS Electoral Observation Mission concurs that current investigations are defective, noting in its second bulletin that “authorities charged with investigating and punishing those responsible for acts of violence have not achieved concrete results.”

Finally, rumors abound concerning the possibility of future violence. Most worrisome are increasingly credible rumors that on November 9, gang members financed and supported by the FRG will cause disruptions and violence throughout Guatemala City to keep urban voters, who favor other political parties, away from the polls. Gang members have told staff at organizations who work closely with street gangs that FRG officials have offered them money and guns in exchange for provoking chaos in the capital on the day of the elections. Others claim the FRG leadership agreed to halt anti-gang legislation in Congress (which the FRG did on October 13).

B. Illegal Use of State Funds for Political Purposes
Political parties have also violated the law by using state funds for public purposes. National electoral observers have documented that the central and municipals governments, especially those controlled by the FRG, are buying votes. They do so with promises and deliveries of cash or loans, gifts of material goods, and by conditioning development projects and government programs (such as scholarships, fertilizers, and compensation/reparations programs). Moreover, there are indications the FRG utilized public funds for transportation, food, and other supplies needed to carry out the July riots. A number of political parties have also denounced the FRG for obliging State employees to affiliate with the FRG and attend FRG rallies or lose their jobs.

Perhaps most disturbing has been the FRG’s role in the re-organization of the former Civil Defense Patrols (ex-PACs). The military originally formed the PACs in the early 1980s to act as the civilian eyes and ears of the army. They were officially disbanded as part of the Peace Accords in 1996. In 2002, with the help of retired military officers close to the FRG, they reformed, demanding compensation for their wartime “services.” In contrast to its lethargic attitude regarding reparations for victims of the war, the FRG administration immediately agreed to compensate the ex-PACs, despite the fact that nearly 20% of the massacres committed during the civil war have been attributed to these groups. In exchange for compensation, the ex-PACs are expected to vote for the FRG. 7

The abuse of state resources is also clearly visible when comparing government advertising expenditures for 2002 and 2003. In only 3½ months of 2003 – from May 15 through August 31 – the government spent approximately 48 million quetzales (approx. US$6 million), 4 million quetzales (approx. US$500,000) more than it spent in all of 2002. Mirador Electoral is concerned that such spending may constitute a form of political-electoral manipulation that could affect voters’ decisions.

Dismayed by the government’s complete disregard for the law, the TSE has issued two warnings demanding that the Portillo administration desist from using state funds and propaganda for campaign purposes. The TSE’s Inspector General has also forwarded a formal complaint by the OAS Electoral Observation Mission on this issue to the Attorney General’s office for processing.

C. Identity Fraud
For the first time in Guatemala’s history, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) has made the electoral rolls available to the public, creating a greater sense of transparency and confidence in the electoral process. Nevertheless, Mirador Electoral is concerned about a number of anomalies involving voter identity cards. For example, in July, the Attorney General’s office received a complaint that 200,000 identity cards had disappeared from the government’s National Printing Office. Political parties from 33 municipalities – 10% of all the municipalities in the country – have made additional accusations that identity cards have been privately printed instead of by the National Printing Office as required by law. Finally, parties have presented denunciations to the TSE that identity cards are being given away and sold to foreigners and young people in order to skew votes.

The TSE’s Office of the Inspector General has been investigating these complaints but, with only one week before the elections, has made little progress. The OAS Electoral Observation Mission has urged the TSE to speed up its investigation process, noting that “an adequate institutional response and timely updates will prevent information gaps and the consequent uncertainty and confusion they can cause among the population.” 8

D. Poor Communication of Electoral Information to the Public
According to Mirador Electoral, the TSE has not effectively disseminated electoral information to the public. Many voters remain unclear about basic details of the voting process, such as where and how to vote, as well as the secrecy of one’s vote. To remedy this situation, Mirador Electoral has asked the TSE to increase its media education campaign around the elections.

Of particular concern is the fact that many people have already lost their opportunity to vote, because they were not properly informed that August 9 was the registration deadline. Many others who are registered are under the mistaken impression they are ineligible to vote because they didn’t update their voter information by August 9. Mirador Electoral has asked that the TSE emphasize these voters’ continuing eligibility in order to prevent even more people from being excluded from the voting process.

To comply with domestic law and Guatemala’s international obligations, public information on the elections must be made available in Mayan languages as well as Spanish. The TSE committed to including Mayan-language messages in its public education campaigns, and Mirador Electoral continues to monitor this issue.

Political parties have also not adequately informed the public about their platforms, priorities, and candidates’ profiles. This lack of information is particularly worrisome considering the prevalence of former military officers in this year’s elections and their potential influence on political party agendas. Former military officers have systematically infiltrated different political parties in order to ensure their ongoing influence and impunity for past human rights violations. Altogether there are nineteen ex-military candidates in this year’s elections, as well as a number of military commissioners and former paramilitary members who are behind some of the political organizing in the countryside. According to Fernando Solís of INCEP, a member organization of Mirador Electoral, the military is using “the political parties, which are weak, to gain access to, and manipulate, power.”

Recommendations

Recent recommendations by domestic and international electoral observation missions include the following:

• The media should substantially increase space for the debate of policies being promoted by the various political parties in the 2003 election process.
• The TSE should intensify its informational campaign in all national languages on how and where to vote and continue its campaign to encourage citizen participation in the voting process.
• The political parties should hold more policy debates and make sure they are transmitted to broad sectors of the public, especially in rural areas.
• Political parties should be careful when they plan or carry out election-related meetings in areas of the country where the armed conflict was particularly intense.
• The appropriate authorities should investigate allegations of political violence and fraud in an expeditious and fair manner, ensuring their conclusions are made public. This will renew voter confidence in the fairness of the elections.

This electoral synthesis is provided by NISGUA, the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala. NISGUA is a human rights organization that supports democracy, socioeconomic justice, and human rights in Guatemala, and advocates U.S. policies furthering these goals. The full text of the first four Mirador Electoral reports can be found in Spanish at the Mirador Electoral’s website www.miradorelectoral2003.org, or in English at www.nisgua.org. The first two bulletins of the OAS Electoral Observation Mission can be found at www.oas.org.

NISGUA 1830 Connecticut Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20009 202-518-7638
nisgua@igc.org www.nisgua.org

Footnotes:

1 On July 24, in response to the Guatemalan Supreme Court’s provisional suspension of Efraín Ríos Montt’s registration as the FRG presidential candidate, FRG mobs violently took over the capital by the thousands. They held Guatemala City hostage for a period of 48 hours, demanding and eventually achieving Ríos Montt’s registration.

2 The president of the Constitutional Court (CC), who is a childhood friend of Ríos Montt, selected supplemental justices for the CC in secret, in violation of the law. Even though the justices he selected have strong ties to the FRG, they did not recuse themselves from hearing the case, putting into doubt their impartiality, as well as the credibility of the process. Thus constituted, on July 14 the CC overturned its own precedent when it ruled, 4-3, in favor of Ríos Montt’s registration as a presidential candidate. In two earlier decisions (1990 and 1995), the court had ruled that Article 186 of the Guatemalan Constitution prohibited Ríos Montt from running since he had assumed power through an illegal coup in March 1982. In a subsequent CC decision on July 30, the court forbade all lower courts from hearing any additional appeals on this issue, blatantly violating Guatemalans’ right of access to the courts.

3 The coalition, Mirador Electoral 2003: We’re Your Eyes, Guatemala, is comprised of four respected civic, academic, and human rights organizations and relies on a volunteer force of more than 3,000 domestic electoral observers. Through its work, Mirador Electoral seeks to increase civil society’s control over the electoral process so that it better reflects the principles of inclusion, equality, competition, and transparency. Mirador Electoral focuses on four primary activities: a) Monitoring the administrative and judicial functioning of Guatemala’s highest electoral body, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), b) Monitoring the behavior and performance of political parties, c) Maintaining a permanent election observation network focused on issues of civil and political rights, and d) Conducting a Quick Count on the day of the elections.

4 SEDEM, the Association for the Study and Promotion of Security in a Democracy, is a respected Guatemalan nongovernmental organization that promotes the democratic control of intelligence services in Guatemala.
Mirador Electoral 2003, First Report on the National Electoral Process, July 28, 2003, page 3.

“5 MINUGUA analiza la elección de militares: Preocupada por integración del próximo congreso,” Prensa Libre, October 18, 2003.
Evidence of this tit-for-tat relationship is the FRG’s recent passage of a law that creates a trust fund of 70 million quetzales (approx. US$8,750,000) for development projects whose beneficiaries are ex-PACs in the Petén department. Rosenda Pérez, FRG congressional candidate and leader of the Petén ex-PACs, will be responsible for distributing these State funds. Electoral observers have criticized the government for handing over millions of dollars of State funds to a congressional candidate prior to a national election.

6 Organization of American States Electoral Observation Mission, Informative Bulletin #2, page 9.
7 “Fernando Solís: ‘Quieren mantener el poder,’” Interview by Martín Rodriguez P., Prensa Libre, October 18, 2003.