Barbara Schieber at the Guatemala Times posted an article last week on "A glimpse at Guatemala's election panorama 2011" that identifies several important issues that are already taking shape before September's vote.
Shieber comments on the campaign violence that has already broken out with the murder of a senior election official in Jutiapa last week. The mayor of San Sebastian Huehuetenango was killed in November allegedly by political competiors. I never came across an update on the story, but that might have been the first (loosely defined) campaign death.
The 2007 election witnessed the deaths of over 55 people associated with the various campaigns and polittical activists, civil society groups, human rights groups, the press and the politicians are worried that this campaign might be even more violent. According to the post, the primary factor is "the unknown magnitude of illegal financing of the political parties and what that might represent." Illegal financial has been a problem as has campaign violence, although I'm not yet convinced that this campaign will be worse than previous ones.
She also discusses the "illegal" candidacies of Sandra Torres, Alvaro Arzu, and Zury Rios Montt (see here). The legality of their candidacies will likely be decided by the Constitutional Court whose members will be chosen in the upcoming months.
Then there's the illegal campaigning that is going on. As I mentioned before, the fines are so small that nobody really pays attention to the ban. That's unfortunate but expected.
Prensa Libre has another story online today about the illegal early campaigning. The TSE has cited and fined the Unionist Party and the Patriotic Party three times for premature campaigning. They were also ordered to remove their signs. Instead, they paid their $375 and kept the signs.
Just eight more months to election day.
No comments:
Post a Comment