Zury Rios Out in Guatemala

On Saturday, Zury Rios announced that she is no longer running for the presidency of Guatemala on the FRG ticket. As of right now, it appears that the FRG has decided to focus on legislative elections and to not present a candidate for the presidency because of both insufficient funds and the fact that no one is going to vote for their candidate anyway.



In the most recent Siglo XXI / Vox Latina poll, less than 2% said that they intended to vote for her. It's also unclear whether Guatemalans would have had the opportunity to vote for her anyway as Article 186 of the Constitution would seem to have barred her from running. Zury Rios' dad is Efrain Rios Montt, one of the men most responsible for the scorched earth program carried out in the Guatemalan highlands in the early 1980s.

While few people were going to vote for her anyway, I imagine that most who intended to vote for her will now vote for the Patriotic Party of Otto Perez Molina or opt out of voting altogether. That is, if the FRG remains firm in its decision not to run a candidate for president.

“Humala is sending a more moderate message but he’s losing momentum and words, documents aren’t going to be enough,” said Julio Carrion, a professor of Latin American politics at the University of Delaware, in a telephone interview from Newark. “It’s clear the race is still tight, but Keiko has the momentum.”

And in news from another dictator's daughter, Alberto Fujimori's daughter Keiko received some help (?) from former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Keiko Fujimori is preparing to compete against Ollanta Humala for the presidency of Peru on June 5. The most recent poll has the two in a statistical tie (Fujimori 41%, Humala 40%). However, 1 in 5 Peruvians that took part in the poll answered that they were still undecided as to who they were going to vote for so it's any one's game.