Guatemalans head to the polls on Sunday, with two popular candidates disqualified and several prosecutors and journalists arrested or in exile as a result of the government’s anti-corruption crackdown.
There are 22 contenders in the running, with three clearly in the lead: a former first lady, a UN diplomat, and the daughter of an ex-dictator.
“All the candidates are the same and only come to rob (the people). I still don’t know if I’m going to vote,” street vendor Nestor Figueroa told AFP in the capital Guatemala City.
According to the most recent Prensa Libre poll, center-leftist Sandra Torres, the ex-wife of late former leftist president Alvaro Colom, leads with 21.3 percent, followed by centrist career diplomat Edmond Mulet with 13.4 percent.
Zury Rios, the daughter of former military strongman Efrain Rios Montt, is in third place with 9.1 percent.
Manuel Conde, the candidate of President Alejandro Giammattei’s party, comes fourth with 5.8 percent.
The polls show that the election will most likely proceed to a runoff on August 20, with no single contender expected to receive the 50% minimum share of votes required to win in the first round.
The Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) has knocked out two serious contenders, in judgments that opponents have called faulty.
Carlos Pineda, the poll frontrunner at the time, lost a Constitutional Court appeal in May against the TSE’s disqualification for suspected flaws in his candidate registration.
Thelma Cabrera, a representative of Guatemala’s Mayan Indigenous tribe, is also out of the campaign due to suspicions of financial misconduct against her vice-presidential running companion.
According to the Prensa Libre poll, distrust in the TSE and its perceived opaque decision-making is high, with more than one in ten planning to vote blank in protest.
