Giammattei for President

Three days after leaving prison, Alejandro Giammattei is now the presidential candidate for the Center for Social Action Party (CASA). Giammattei is the former director of the Penitentiary System from the Berger administration. 

The International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) had accused Giammattei and sixteen others of belonging to a criminal organization that carried out executions both inside and outside the country's prisons, including the execution of seven inmates during the storming of the Pavón Rehabilitation Farm in September 2006. A judge from the high risk court ordered Giammattei released in May during a real low point in CICIG's history in Guatemala.  

Giammattei finished in third place (behind Colom and Perez Molina) with 17% of the vote in the 2007 presidential contest at the head of the Grand National Alliance (GANA) ticket. Giammattei should place somewhere in the second tier of candidates along with Suger, Baldizon, and Caballeros and Guatemalans probably don't have to fear what will happen to CICIG under President Giammattei.

Reducing the Guatemalan Army

Adam Isaacson argues that Oscar Berger's decision to reduce the Guatemalan military from 50,000 to 17,000 in 2004 is not the main reason that the country is ill-prepared to fight drug trafficking and organized crime. He then makes four very good points.

• Cutting back the Army wasn’t a mistake. The big mistake was not increasing the police to fill the gap...
• Fighting organized crime is not what an army does...
• It’s wrong to assume that Guatemala’s army would be less susceptible to corruption...
• Guatemala’s army has never been held to account for human rights crimes...

I agree with every point that he makes, but would just want to add two more things. First, I am not sure that we know what happened to the 33,000 members of the Army that were let go. How many found their way into the ranks of the cartels or other shadowy groups? Would a force of around 30,000 have provided a career opportunity for young men and women and had any substantive impact on the number of unemployed, cartel footmen, or migrants heading north to the US?

Second, if Guatemala has one police officer for every 700 residents that means that it has a force of about 20,000. That’s the ratio that the WSJ uses. However, from what I read in November 2009, Guatemala had 23,287 police officers. That would work out to 1 officer for every 600 Guatemalans. That still does not meet the standard suggested by the UN, but it is a little better.

In 2006, the country counted on 19,600 police, or 150 per 100,000 Guatemalans. With a force of 23,287 in late 2009, that worked out to about 166 police per 100,000 (based on a population of 14 million).  This ratio is considerably less than that of El Salvador, a country confronting similar problems of insecurity, where the ratio was about 229 per 100,000 in 2006. With the 2009 increase in El Salvador’s force, it possesses about 242 agents per 100,000 (17,000 based on a population of 7 million) (Guatemala’s Drug Crime Challenge: How We Can Help It Cope).

The difference in police forces is magnified if one takes into consideration that El Salvador’s population is less than half that of Guatemala, it is geographically smaller at almost one-fifth the size (42,043 sq mi for Guatemala versus 8,124 sq mi for El Salvador), has only one coast, and does not share a 600-mile long boundary with Mexico.

An additional problem with the police is that President Colom stated (as of 2009) that he had added 6,000 new police since taking office. (I don't have more up to date numbers.) At a minimum, then, at least one quarter of the force has less than four years’ experience. The large percentage of new recruits among the Guatemalan police feeds into the lack of training and experience criticism.

None of this undermines Adam's argument. Reducing the military isn't the main reason that Guatemala has been unable to deal with drug trafficking and organized crime. A more important failure is that the country has failed to produce enough properly trained police officers.

Another Road Block for Torres

After four hours of deliberation, the magistrates of the Guatemalan Supreme Electoral Tribunal rejected Sandra Torres, UNE and GANA's petition to overturn the decision of the Registro de Ciudadanos (RC). The RC had denied Torres' inscription as presidential candidate earlier in the week because she had committed fraud in getting divorced so that she could get around Article 186 of the constitution. The vote was three to two against. 

Orlando Blanco, UNE's campaign manager, said that there are  "evil intentions" and "a very strong conspiracy" behind the efforts to register the UNE-GANA presidential candidate. Torres herself said

"Those who do not want me to register are the dark powers behind the million [dollar] campaigns that are now financing presidential candidates. This dark power of money, funding campaigns, where they have billboards everywhere. I will register by faith and will of God."

Torres has another three days to appeal to the TSE before moving upon to the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ). If the CSJ upholds the ban on Torres, she can then appeal to the Constitutional Court which is the last hurrah. All this has to be done by July 11th, the last day to inscribe candidates.

On the one hand, who really cares? According to every poll out there, Torres is likely to be crushed at the ballot box. Torres is not thinking about what is in the bast interests of her party and the people of Guatemala. Torres is only thinking about Torres. 

On the other hand, she (and many others) probably believe that she is the country's last best hope to prevent the ascendancy of General Otto Perez Molina to the presidency. While she is twenty-to-thirty points behind Perez, she is probably the only candidate with a sliver of a chance to defeat him and she must do everything possible to stop the general. Here's why.   

Perez was a military officer in Quiche, one of the department's that suffered the most under the government's 1980s scorched-earth program. Perez and the Patriotic Party's promise this weekend to bring peace to the Ixcan probably sent shivers down the spines of many of the people there. 

In his 2007 and 2011 campaigns, Perez promised to take a harder line against organized crime and drug trafficking should he be elected. For many, the Colom administration hasn't cared all that much about human rights during the states of siege in Alta Verapaz or Peten and doesn't seem too concerned with investigating human rights violations against civil society. While no one expects a similar scorched-earth program to root out crime should Perez be elected, human rights are likely to be even less of a concern.

There has also been movement towards holding military officials accountable for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in recent years. It's quite likely that ongoing investigations into military officials involved in state repression and their prosecution will come to a halt under a Perez government. For those looking to indict and prosecute Perez, that hope will be dashed with his election as president.

Finally, the Colom's record of support for CICIG hasn't been all that great but there have been advances in rooting out corrupt officials and convicting arresting former high-level government officials. It's not clear that a Perez victory will make CICIG's work any easier. As a result, the country will return to the corruption and lawlessness of the Portillo administration.

There are important reasons to reject Torres' attempt to dance around the constitution and become president. However, for those interested in a more comprehensive approach to organized crime and drug trafficking (increased spending on social programs in addition to mano dura policies), holding former military officers accountable for crimes committed during the country's conflict (including Perez himself), and supporting the work of CICIG, Torres might be your only choice in September. Perhaps that is why Torres is willing to go to such great lengths to be president.