GUATEMALA CITY — Crime-weary Guatemalans appear poised to elect a former general as president who promises an “iron fist” to fight crime in one of the world’s most violent countries not at war.
Otto Perez Molina, 61, heads into Sunday’s election with a 20 percentage-point lead over his closest challenger, 25 years after the end of brutal military rule in the country.
Perez has never been implicated in massacres or other crimes attributed to the military during a bloody, 36-year civil war with Marxist rebels and has played key roles in the march toward democracy, including negotiating the peace accords.
Guatemalans today appear to be more worried about poverty and the violence they face from street gangs and drug traffickers than whether a former military leader would represent a return to the past.
Crime is epidemic in the capital, Guatemala City, and the country has one of the highest murder rates in the Western Hemisphere at 45 per 100,000, according to a report by the World Bank.
The indigenous and poor in rural areas who were most hurt by the war are also bearing the brunt of current conflicts.
“The people believe a military leader has the ability to reclaim security,” said Edgar Gutierrez, Guatemalan foreign minister from 2002 to 2004. “Almost 70 percent of voters are young. They didn’t live the armed conflict, they don’t know about the massacres, . . . and since the peace accords, the national police have become the organization that is talked about daily as corrupt, abusive and inept, not the military.”
Perez is not likely to win outright Sunday and will likely face a November runoff.
