Arevalo, a candidate for the progressive Movimiento Semilla or Seed Movement,((the party is called Semilla) is projected to win by 61 percent, according to a survey published on Wednesday by the research firm CID Gallup. Since Sunday’s election is run off, any candidate with the largest number of votes will win the presidency. That way, if the trend is reflected on the polling day, Arevalo is going to be the next president of the central American country facing many problems.

Such a victory would mark a major upset over early frontrunner Sandra Torres, a former first lady representing the conservative party National Unity of Hope (UNE). Torres was taken as a front runner and a sure candidate till the first round of elections held on June 25 when the voters gave a surprising verdict by putting Alvero in the second place requiring a run off. Torres and Arevalo are set to go head-to-head in a run-off election on August 20, the culmination of a bumpy presidential race rocked by fears of political unrest and disturbances.

The son of Guatemala’s first democratically elected president and a member of Congress himself, Arevalo scored 11.8 percent of the vote, a total only surpassed by Torres at 15.7 percent. No other candidate polled higher than 8 percent. That result propelled Arevalo and Torres to Sunday’s run-off. But in the aftermath of Arevalo’s first-round success, rival parties questioned whether the vote tally was accurate, appealing to the court system for a review.

That proceeding ultimately upheld the results — but on the same day that the election tribunal certified the vote, the Attorney General’s Office successfully petitioned a court to suspend Arevalo’s Seed Movement. Prosecutors claimed that, 5,000signatures used to form the party had been fraudulent.

Legal experts quickly denounced the move as a violation of Guatemalan law, which prohibits suspending a party’s legal status in the midst of an ongoing election. And the country’s Constitutional Court ultimately reversed the lower court’s suspension. But the Attorney General’s Office has continued to take action against the Seed Movement, ordering police to raid the party’s offices for evidence. Police raids have also targeted the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, the country’s election authority. The tribunal ultimately requested an injunction against the Attorney General’s Office to ensure the election’s integrity.

The right wing media and the ruling party have called the Semilla leader as a communist to polarize the electorate, but he is a moderate socialist. But his party’s platform certainly represents a shift away from the right-wing status quo. Semilla’s policy promises are a direct challenge to the powers that have long ruled Guatemala. The party pledges to invest billions in public education and beef up public healthcare with the goal of eventually reaching universal coverage. Arevalo’s programmes are similar to the policies of the present Brazilian president Lula.

Arévalo also wants to establish diplomatic and economic ties with the People’s Republic of China. Guatemala is one of the few countries in the world that still recognizes the authorities in Taipei, Taiwan as the official government of all of China.. He is promising the government control over some of the key natural resources of Guatemala so as to bring down the power of the big multinational corporations belonging to the USA. During dictatorship as also later far right regimes, Guatemala government followed a foreign policy on lines of US administration which the Semilla leader certainly.

Naturally, the big corporates and oligarchs are not sitting idle to allow Semilla to mobilise more support before the final round. They are doing everything possible to stop the momentum that has been generated in the country after the June 25 elections. Specially upset are the US based multinationals which are having by control over the mineral resources of this country.

Guatemala has a tumultuous history relating to the functioning of democracy in the last century. In 1944, a coalition of the urban and rural sectors of the working class ousted Dictator Jorge Ubico, who ruled from 1931 to 1944. These events are known as Guatemala’s “October Revolution” and ushered in the “Ten Years of Spring,” a period of democratic progress that stretched until 1954.

Juan Jose Arévalo, the father of Bernardo Arévalo, was elected president of Guatemala in the country’s first democratic elections. For six years, the PAR (Revolutionary Action Party) governed, overseeing a liberalization of politics and public life. The government enacted labor reforms that included the formation of the IGSS (Guatemalan Institute of Social Security) and a new constitution.

Arévalo called his philosophy of governance “spiritual socialism”. During his tenure 1.4 million acres of land had been expropriated from the foreign owners and domestic landlords and distributed. To more than 5 lakh landless belonging to mostly indigenous people. The land distribution hit badly the US companies, especially the United Fruit Company. The US MNCs plotted with the domestic far right and brought down the government through the US intelligence agency CIA. The dictatorship of the far right began reversing all progressive reforms of the earlier era and this continued till the late nineties of the last century.

From 1996 to 2023, Guatemalan politics continued to be dominated by a conservative and comprador elite. On Sept. 15, 2015, after months of protest from the Guatemalan people, Otto Pérez Molina resigned as president after a warrant was issued for his arrest over a scheme that involved defrauding the country of millions of dollars. He also participated in the scorched earth military tactics of 1982-83 that led to the massacre of thousands of Indigenous people during the civil war.

That way, for the first time since 1954, the poor of Guatemala are looking at the August 20 elections with some hope as the son of that pro-poor Prime Minister of the last century is in the electoral fray again with a similar programme of land distribution and spread of health and education facilities among the underprivileged. All the social groups including the Guatemala Communist Party have extended their support of Arevalo in the presidential runoff.

On July 14, the Guatemalan communist party (PGT) issued a declaration saying that a victory for Semilla would represent a progressive shift away from the neoconservative policies of the right-wing dominated government. With this, the Communists also called for unity to defend the will of the people of Guatemala. Guatemalan communists took part in the guerrilla struggle along with other left wing groups in the last century .Their trade union activists are campaigning for the victory of Arevalo. Just seventy two hours are left for the run off but the tempo has reached its peak and many journalists are smelling a wind of change. But the big question still is will the right and the administration controlled by it allow a free and fair election on August 20? (IPA Service)