Guatemala City
Former military ruler Efrain Rios Montt failed miserably this week in his bid to be elected president of Guatemala. Former Guatemala City mayor Oscar Berger and businessman Alvaro Colom appeared headed for a December runoff. The former dictator has been accused of presiding over the worst massacres in the Central American country’s 36-year civil war, which ended in 1996. The constitution bars anyone who has seized power in a coup—as Rios Montt did in 1982—from the presidency, but a Supreme Court packed with the 77-year-old general’s supporters allowed him to run. Sociologist Miguel Angel Sandoval said the vote showed that the country had “a memory, and the desire to change.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
China looms large over India and Pakistan's latest violenceIN THE SPOTLIGHT Beijing may not have had troops on the ground, but as South Asia's two nuclear powers bared their teeth over Kashmir, China eyed opportunity in its own backyard
-
Where the new Pope Leo XIV stands on various issuesThe Explainer The first American pontiff is expected to continue some of his predecessor's work
-
What's wrong with America's air traffic control systems?Today's Big Question The radios and radar keep going out at Newark International
