UN chief exhorts Guatemala to respect will of voters

UNITED NATIONS, July 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The UN secretary-general voiced “great concern” surrounding elections in Guatemala and called on the Central American nation to respect the will of voters in free and fair balloting.

Guatemalan voters go to the polls Aug 20 for a runoff presidential election that will veer the country to the political left, unsettling right-wing powerbrokers.

A brief statement on behalf of Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called “on the Guatemalan authorities to respect the human rights of its population, including the right to vote at genuine periodic elections which guarantee the free expression of the will of the electors.”

Voters, he said, “should be protected from any form of coercion and from any unlawful or arbitrary interference with the voting process.”

In the first round elections in June, Guatemalans sent two center-left candidates to a runoff, marking the first time the nation will have a leftist leader in more than a decade.

But since then, a prosecutor has sought to suspend the party of one of the candidates, Bernardo Arevalo, and state agents on Friday raided his party offices allegedly in pursuit of documents showing irregularities in its formation.

Arevalo’s shock arrival in the runoff has distressed right-wing parties and led to efforts to scuttle the electoral process.

Prosecutors have twice sent agents to search the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, prompting the nation’s highest court to issue an injunction to protect the vote.

Guterres said UN member states “are responsible for ensuring transparent, free and fair elections, free of intimidation and coercion.”

Arevalo, son of a reformist former president, finished second behind Sandra Torres, a former first lady who leads a social democratic party.

Efforts to disqualify Arevalo’s Semilla (Seed) Party have drawn stern rebukes from the United Nations, the United States and the European Union. — NNN-AGENCIES