Former attorney general to run for the presidency?

Several years ago I wasn't all that excited about the possibility of former attorney general Claudia Paz y Paz running for the presidency. There was something off-putting about someone moving directly from the country's top prosecutor position to the presidency. At the time, I thought that her political ambitions would do more to hurt the pursuit of justice than to help it. Instead, this remarkable woman is being underutilized.

Jump ahead a few years and now there is speculation that former attorney general Thelma Aldana could run for the presidency. Ximena Enriquez at Americas Quarterly discusses some of the difficulties confronting Aldana if she did indeed throw her hat into the ring. Aldana has no political party. She is not a politician. And she has a long list of powerful enemies. None of those challenges is insurmountable.

“I haven’t made up my mind yet. I don’t have money or a political party to run with. If there was an inclusive platform that was open to people from the left and the right, to women, to immigrants, to young people, to indigenous people, to the private sector – a platform that would open spaces that have been occupied by traditional politicians, I think many of us would be interested in running,” she said. 

I'm all in this time around. There's no clear cut favorite for next year's presidential election. Neither Torres, Giammattei, nor Rios is inspiring. Renzo Rosal speculates that Nineth Montenegro's Encuentro por Guatemala (EG) could be Aldana's best political vehicle for arriving at the presidency, which makes sense.

EG was founded in 2007 and has had most of its electoral successful in urban areas. The party’s secretary general, Nineth Montenegro, has been a member of Congress for over 20 years and is known for holding power to account. Even then, there would be challenges. EG is small, and most of its members come from urban and suburban counties. The party has also lost some of its past influence in recent years. It does not have a strong national infrastructure that might help Aldana win the election. She and her team would have to do most of the work.

Montenegro said she had no information about Aldana’s potential candidacy, but that it would be great if a woman were to run. Despite Montenegro's statement, members of Aldana’s team and an EG party member both told AQ that negotiations were already underway. 

Like the EG, Aldana's strength would most likely lie in the country's urban areas. Over the yeas, the EG has maintained cordial relations with certain members of the economic elite. As a centrist political party in a system with a great deal of ideological fluidity, the EG has gained the support of as well as alienated those on both the left and right. I don't place too much faith in single individuals but Aldana is someone I could get behind. That is, unless Paz y Paz wanted to throw her hat into the ring.