The Guatemalan Supreme Electoral Court yesterday ruled against Sandra Torres, ex-wife of President Álvaro Colom, in her bid to compete in the country’s September 11 presidential election. The court’s decision was based on legal fraud stemming from Torres’ divorce from Colom on March 11.
The divorce was an effort to bypass a provision in the Guatemalan constitution that bars close relatives of a former president from taking power. Aimed at limiting autocratic rule, the clause dates back to Guatemala’s transition to democracy in the mid-1980s. According to Deputy Christian Boussinot of Torres’ Coalicion de la Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza y la Gran Alianza Nacional (National Unity of Hope—UNE), the party plans to appeal the decision.
Even before the Court’s decision, Torres was trailing behind her presidential rival, former army general and Partido Patriota (Patriot Party) candidate Otto Pérez Molina, by 27 percentage points in an exit poll of 230,000 voters conducted by Prensa Libre and released yesterday. Given the high levels of insecurity in Guatemala, Pérez Molina’s military background and anti-crime platform make him a popular candidate. If Torres had been allowed to run and won the election, she would have become Guatemala’s first female president.
