It's inauguration day inGuatemala. I wasn't impressed with the two main presidential candidates and Ican't say that I'm excited to have Otto Perez Molina in charge for the nextfour years given what he is alleged to have done and what he intends to do. (NPR, Bloomberg, Christian Science Monitor, Reuters, The Foundry)
On Friday morning, aGuatemalan congressman was shot and killed blocks fromthe country's congress.
OscarValentin Leal Caal was elected to congress as a member of LIDER. However, justdays ago, he agreed to switch his party affiliation to Perez' Patriotic Parry(PP). Even though President Alvaro Colom "said there was no immediate evidence the crime was linked tocongressional affairs or Perez's inauguration" his murder has led to somespeculation that he was killed because of political motivations as his partyswitch wasn't official at the time of his death.
On the other hand,according to reports, he has been getting threats since his Septemberreelection so it's hard to see how his switch played a role unless we know more about what has been going on behind the scenes.
The otherscenario is that he was killed for some reason related to events in AltaVerapaz, the department which he represents in congress. It's also thedepartment where the government launched a state of siege in December 2010.
Roxanna Baldetti spoke to the press this morning. She says they have recovered the murder weapon, a police revolver. They also have a protected witness. Let's justsay that Leal's death was probably not a suicide. That one's been tried before.
In other news, afterPresident Colom says good-bye, he will try to rekindle that loving feeling with former wife SandraTorres. She apparently isn't going anywhere. She wants more security and the political persecution to stop. She's alsoone of the favorites in 2015 in case you are looking ahead.
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