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PRESIDENTIAL RUN FOR RIOBERTA MENCHU WOULD ALTER THE POLITICAL EQUATION IN GUATAMALA.

Article Excerpt
The 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu Tum has announced her intention to run for president in the September 2007 general elections, setting the stage for the most profound change in the way Guatemala does its political business in years. The indigenous leader launched her candidacy with the Movimiento Politico Winaq as her platform. "After Guatemala's 200 years as a republic, we will exercise our constitutional right to be elected. We want to contribute today to the country's construction of intercultural bases. It is an indigenous overture for all the country," said Menchu. Winaq means humanity in the K'iche language.

Internationally, Menchu is the country's best known figure and by many estimates a natural for political office, but few expected her to enter the arena as early as 2007. As recently as December 2006, she announced in Costa Rica that she would form an indigenist party that would field candidates in the 2011 general elections. "In Guatemala, there is a distinguished national indigenous leadership, and, yes, we are going to create a political party to seek the government," she said. "I will be one of the key people in the formation of this instrument that is ready to be born."

Somewhere between then and now, the plan changed. Rather than going it alone and seeking legal-party status, Winaq has been considering making common cause with left and center-left parties already in existence, substantially accelerating the process. Still in negotiation, the plan would have the Winaq team up with Encuentro por Guatemala (EG) and the just-formed Movimiento Amplio de Izquierda (MAIZ). MAIZ includes the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG), which has a substantial organizational base. The major union and popular organizations are also involved. Such agglutination would create a formidable political bulwark from a fractured left barely able to gain traction in this conservative country where rightists have reigned with...

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