Several stories have come out in recent days if you'd like to catch up the front runner in Guatemala's presidential elections, Otto Perez Molina of the Patriotic Party.
Danilo Valladares has an article that presents some concerns that people on the left have about what a Perez administration might mean in Activists Worried that Clenched Right Fist Will Take Power. The former general was involved in the 1980s scorched-earth program and still denies that genocide occurred. That doesn’t bode well for the prosecution of military officers and government officials involved in civil war era crimes nor does it bode well for dismantling criminal elements in the military and police today.
A second story comes from a recent Wikileaks cable (See InSight Crime) describing a 2007 meeting that Otto Perez Molina had with the US ambassador. In the meeting, Perez admitted to having a relationship with members of the Medoza family, a family that the US and Guatemalan authorities have linked to drug trafficking.
Perez had denied any relationship with the family as recently as a month ago. (InSight also has a translated version of Plaza Publica's interview with the General.) In his defense, he said that he only had minimal relationship with the good Mendoza brother, not the one linked to drug trafficking in the Peten. It’s never good to be linked to drug traffickers, but there’s not much to the story yet. Obviously it’s not good that he lied about the relationship but unless there’s more to the story than that it won’t make much waves.
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