Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | N | NotiCen: Central American & Caribbean Affairs

GUATEMALAN BUSINESSMEN PURSUE LOST POWER ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL.

Article Excerpt
Years of estrangement between the business sector and the Alfonso Portillo government (see NotiCen, 2003-01-15) have produced a political wrinkle not seen before in Guatemala politics. Individual business leaders, who traditionally allowed their industry associations to be their spokesmen, are now entering the arena themselves, as candidates and backers of candidates, and breaking free of organizations like the Comite Coordinador de Asociaciones Agricolas, Comerciales, y Financieras (CACIF), the private sector power house.

The trend has so far calved the once ruling Partido de Avancada Nacional (PAN), producing a coalition party named the Gran Alianza Nacional (Gana), which carried off PAN's official presidential candidate Oscar Berger. Berger, a hugely popular former mayor of Guatemala City brought the new party instant renown and a towering lead in polls. PAN was left scrambling for a substitute, and briefly adopted the tactic of not telling anybody that Berger had left them. The ploy showed some success in the hinterlands, where people showed up at Berger rallies hoisting PAN banners and wearing the party's blue and yellow official colors. Gana eventually had to bring suit before the Tribunal Supremo Electoral (TSE) to get PAN to quit the...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!