It's election day in Guatemala
In my email exchange with Cristina Silva for the International Business Times, I said that it's a little too early to tell but that I didn't get the impression that the corruption scandals in the Perez / Baldetti administration had too thoroughly shaken investor confidence in the country. Most businessmen, policy people, and academics already knew about the level of corruption in the country and that we had incorporated that into our analyses (or at least I thought we did as I wrote in last year's Freedom House report). I was somewhat optimistic that the arrests would improve conditions in the country but that the next president and congress have rather significant problems confronting them.
I tried to make two main points in this interview with the Los Angeles Times. First, I argued that the attorney general's office and the courts experienced progress these last four years in spite of Perez Molina and Baldetti. I was also hugely impressed by months of sustained nonviolent protests that was pivotal in their ousters. It would be ideal if two less shady characters had advanced to a second round, however, I was trying to be optimistic that the same marginal progress might happen under a Morales or Torres government. I don't know if I said it to the author on Friday, but I've been consistent in saying that I thought that Torres would be less likely to stand in the way than would be Morales.
Second, it's jut hard to predict what is going to happen over the next four years. After the 2011 election, I would not have guessed that Manuel Baldizon's Lider party would be the last lifeline for Perez Molina's Patriotic Party. Baldizon's efforts really hurt his electoral fortunes (a corrupt VP candidate didn't help either). Baldizon is more "new wealth" so I took his loss of support as a rejection not just of oligarchic old wealth but new.
I tried to make two main points in this interview with the Los Angeles Times. First, I argued that the attorney general's office and the courts experienced progress these last four years in spite of Perez Molina and Baldetti. I was also hugely impressed by months of sustained nonviolent protests that was pivotal in their ousters. It would be ideal if two less shady characters had advanced to a second round, however, I was trying to be optimistic that the same marginal progress might happen under a Morales or Torres government. I don't know if I said it to the author on Friday, but I've been consistent in saying that I thought that Torres would be less likely to stand in the way than would be Morales.
Second, it's jut hard to predict what is going to happen over the next four years. After the 2011 election, I would not have guessed that Manuel Baldizon's Lider party would be the last lifeline for Perez Molina's Patriotic Party. Baldizon's efforts really hurt his electoral fortunes (a corrupt VP candidate didn't help either). Baldizon is more "new wealth" so I took his loss of support as a rejection not just of oligarchic old wealth but new.
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