San Miguel Dueñas (Guatemala), June 16 (EFE).- Guatemalan presidential candidate Juri Ríos Sosa, daughter of coup dictator Efrain Ríos Montt (1982-1983), promised this Saturday that candidates were excluded from the June 25 election. A Central American country they should have been part of the election.
„Sovereignty belongs to the people and all candidates must participate,” Ríos Sosa answered EFE, when asked about the legality of the current electoral process in Guatemala.
The candidate’s words were recorded during his final campaign in the municipality of San Miguel Duenas, department (province) of Zacatepec, located 30 kilometers west of the Guatemalan capital.
„That injustice was done to me 4 years ago and I couldn’t participate,” Rios Sosa added.
General elections will be held on June 25 in Guatemala without the participation of three candidates for the presidency, with the possibility of victory: tribal leader Thelma Cabrera, businessman Carlos Pineda and the son of former president Alvaro Arzu Irigoyen (1996-2000) ), Roberto Arzu García-Granados.
The vetoes of the three nominations came from the Guatemalan Supreme Electoral Tribunal and the Judicial Courts, and were widely criticized by various sectors, both locally and internationally.
According to experts, the exclusion of candidates benefits the aspirations of Ríos Sosa and other candidates associated with the ruling party.
Closure of campaign
Ríos Sosa, the candidate of the right-wing Valor Unionista coalition, attended a rally in San Miguel Dueñas with several representative candidates and a strong security team of about 500 people, most of them women and elderly.
Regarding the persecution of journalists in Guatemala, Ríos Sosa responded, „Freedom of expression is a constitutional right, but it must be exercised with respect.”
During his speech before his party’s supporters, Ríos Sosa offered to create 10,000 monthly jobs and provide security forces with technology to fight crime.
According to various polls released this semester, the former vice chancellor is one of the five front-runners likely to make it to the second round of the election.
The 55-year-old daughter of former Congress president Ríos Montt and with five marriages in her life, the Central American country’s constitution forbids relatives from running for president, and was registered to run amid criticism from various sectors. They ruled by coup.
For this reason, Ríos Sosa was barred from participating in two annual general elections in 2019 and 2015 after the country’s highest court, the Constitutional Court, banned his registration.
However, for the current elections, Ríos Sosa has the approval of the Constitutional Court because at least two of the five regular judges who approved his candidacy, according to experts, have been associated with Ríos’ daughter’s political groups in the past.
Juri Ríos’ father, José Efraín Ríos Montt, ruled Guatemala after a coup, and his tenure saw some of the bloodiest massacres in the Central American country’s 36-year civil war (1960-1996), which left more than 250,000 people dead. Murdered or disappeared.
The candidate is accompanied by vice-presidential candidate Hector Sifuentes, a long-time former prosecutor of the Guatemala City municipality who was accused of illegal election financing between 2011 and 2015.
Elections will be held in Guatemala on June 25 to define the Central American country’s powers for the 2024-2028 period. EFE
dte/jcm/laa
(Photo) (Video)
(c) EFE Agency
