Siglo XXI Interview with URNG's Sandoval

Siglo XXI published an interview with Miguel Angel Sandoval yesterday. Sandoval was the URNG's presidential candidate in 2007, finishing in seventh place with 2% of the national vote.

Here are three quotes that Siglo XXI highlighted.

"Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán has been the only President who had a national project that went through land reform, national sovereignty and independent development as a country."

"We are tired of politicians who hide behind religion to commit outrages of any kind;" for example, the murders he committed Efraín Ríos Montt, in the name of the cross; "or politicians like Harold Caballeros, who made a wonderful business cheating all parishioners and that religion should be condemned, not the fact of being a freethinker"

"The date the business sector has been a drag for this Government." There are three examples: it has closed the way to rural development policy, it has opposed a tax reform, and has manifested a thousand loves with the sale and misuse of natural resources of the country. "That is why I think that the Government should not have as an advisor to the business sector, but at an adequate distance"

While I wouldn't be surprised to see the Broad Front pick up a few seats in September's election, it probably won't be enough to make a large impact on the make-up of the congress. That's a shame. The URNG/Broad Front is one of the few political parties that speaks consistently on indigenous and women's rights, rural development, gold mining, and the environment.

Political discourse would benefit from a stronger left, represented in both congress and at the municipal level. For that reason, I hope that those participating in the Broad Front are going into the project with realistic expectations for 2011 and that a weak electoral showing does not doom the party's long-term development.