While everyone was celebrating what would have been Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday yesterday, today the URNG is celebrating an anniversary. On February 7, 1982, the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP), the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR), the Organization of the People in Arms (ORPA), and the Guatemalan Labor Party (PGT) formed the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unit (URNG).
Over the next decade, the guerrillas were weakened by a series of military defeats and assassinations, the apparent failure of Marxism-Leninism as a viable alternative to the liberal-democratic order, and their failure to develop a broad based opposition to the military, and then civil-military, regimes. After nearly fifteen years of war, the URNG signed the Firm and Lasting Peace Agreement with President Alvaro Arzu of the National Advancement Party (PAN) on December 29, 1996. The URNG officially began the legal process of becoming a political party in June 1997 and was formally inscribed as a political party eighteen months later.
In 1999, the URNG prepared to form part of the New Nation Alliance (ANN) along with the Democratic Front for a New Guatemala (FDNG), the Democratic Leftist Union and the Authentic Integral Development Party for legislative and presidential elections. The alliance would have allowed the URNG and the Guatemalan left to capitalize on the previous electoral success of the FDNG which had elected six deputies to the Congress in 1995. But the leftist coalition fractured when the FDNG withdrew from the alliance in the midst of the 1999 campaign. In the presidential election, the ANN candidate, Álvaro Colom Caballeros (Guatemala's current president), won just over 12% of the vote and finished in third place, well behind the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) and the (PAN). In the congressional elections, the URNG as part of the ANN won nine congressional seats. This accounted for 8% of the congress’ total of 113 seats.
For many new political parties, 8% of the seats would be quite an accomplishment. But given that the party led by former dictator Efrain Ríos Montt (FRG) captured sixty-three seats (56%) and the second most successful party (PAN) captured thirty-seven seats (33%), many were disappointed with the URNG’s electoral results. Some said that elections' outcome “essentially translated its military defeat into political defeat.”
Between the 1999 and 2003 elections, the URNG continued to have problems with maintaining its party unity and, eventually, Jorge Soto resigned from the party. The URNG remained distant from civil society and many of its former combatants at this time as well. By the time of the 2003 elections rolled around, the URNG was in a significantly weaker position than it was in 1999.
Like the FMLN, the URNG presented one of its historic leaders as its presidential candidate in its second attempt at the presidency after choosing an individual loosely tied to the insurgency in its first attempt. In November 2003, the URNG selected Rodrigo Asturias (aka Gaspar Ilom), the son of Nobel Literature Laureate Miguel Angel Asturias. After a disappointing campaign, Asturias captured 3% of the national vote and finished in sixth place. As the URNG’s performance dropped from 12% to 3%, so too its vote total dropped by some 200,000, leaving it with fewer than 70,000 votes.
The elections for the country’s legislature were similarly disappointing as the URNG captured 4% percent of the national vote and two seats in the congress. Its performance was considerably worse than simply capturing fewer seats relative to 1999, as the total number of seats available had increased from 113 to 158 in the intervening years.
In 2007, fourteen candidates vied for the presidency with only three (Colom 28.23%, Pérez Molina 23.51%, and Giammattei 17.23%) attaining electoral support in the double digits. The URNG-MAIZ ticket captured a disappointing, but not unexpected, two percent of the vote. The ex-guerrillas in the ANN captured less than 1%. Finally, the Encuentro por Guatemala-Winaq, with Rigoberta Menchú as its candiate, received 3.09% of the national vote. Colom defeated Pérez Molina in a second round contest to become the sixth consecutive civilian president of Guatemala (53% to 47%). At the same time, the URNG-MAIZ captured two seats in the congress with 3.27% of the vote.
Today, the URNG-MAIZ is working to form a broad front to contest the 2011 elections with Pablo Monsanto of the ANN and other political and social organizations on the left. There's no clear presidential candidate (Pablo?) and the party has little ability to affect this year's presidential election. At the legislative level, the URNG and allies could pick up a seat in perhaps Chimaltenango, Sololá, Alta Verapaz, or Petén. and also hold its Huehuetenango (Walter Felix) and from the national list (Hector Nuila).
Happy anniversary and here's to a successful bounce back campaign in September.
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