Bernardo Arevalo de Leon became the surprise of Guatemala's elections on Sunday. With almost 12% of the preferences, the candidate of the Seed Movement, a progressive party that emerged in the heat of the mobilizations of 2015, will face in the second round on August 20 the former first lady Sandra Torres, who with about 16% was the most voted option. Arévalo (Montevideo, 64 years old), is presented as "the son of the best president of Guatemala", a recognition that several generations have granted to Juan José Arévalo Bermejo, the reformist president who governed the Central American country from 1945 to 1951, after the triumph of the October Revolution of 1944 that ended a cycle of military dictatorships.
Sociologist, doctor in Philosophy and Social Anthropology, Arévalo, who identifies as a social democrat, was born in Uruguay during the exile of his family due to the persecution of the regime that retook power and overthrew President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán in 1954. The presidential candidate of the Seed Movement is one of the founders of that force that was driven by intellectuals and young professionals indignant with the traditional ways of doing politics. The movement emerged as a political option to respond to the demands of the citizen demonstrations that took to the streets to express their rejection against the widespread corruption that the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) uncovered in the country. Arévalo was elected as a deputy in the 2019 elections, the first time that Semilla nominated candidates and in which the candidacy of Thelma Aldana, the former attorney general who led the fight against corruption together with the CICIG and who had to go into exile, was truncated.
After midnight on Sunday, the scrutiny already anticipated the feat. The polls, which barely gave him 3% of the vote, crashed with all forecasts, but the candidate was already in the second round. The politician then decided to go to the National Information Center (CNI) that the electoral authorities had installed in a hotel in Guatemala City. "We are very happy because we are a political party, we are not a collection of people but a party that responds to a platform and a vision," Arevalo told reporters around him. "We were always clear that polls don't reflect what people were thinking," he said.
Expert in conflict resolution
What happened? For political scientist Ricardo Sáenz, the desire for renewal of society and the rejection of a growing authoritarian tendency were key. "The Seed Movement was seen by 12% of those who went to vote as an option to contain this authoritarian offensive, to contain corruption and to initiate a process of change. And there perhaps a consideration that the population could have had is the reasonableness of Bernardo Arévalo and the proposal of the Seed movement."
Sáenz recalls that the group of academics and intellectuals convened by sociologist Edelberto Torres Rivas to propose solutions from the margins of politics ended up becoming a party after the democratic spring of 2015. "He has one of the most solid government programs that are under discussion and in all the debates in which Bernardo Arévalo participated, he was characterized by showing his intelligence, his serenity and his capacity for dialogue. And this is important: he was for a long time an official of Interpeace [an international organization dedicated to the promotion of peace]. So he is a specialist in conflict resolution. He has worked in Guatemala, in Africa, in Latin America precisely in favoring dialogue processes." With this background, Arévalo prepares to give battle in the second round. So far, it has already managed to break the chessboard of Guatemala's traditional politics.
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