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PRESIDENT-ELECT ALVARO COLOM COULD END CORRUPTION IN GUATEMALA; ONE ANALYST'S VIEW.

Article Excerpt
To win the Nov. 5 election, President-elect Alvaro Colom had to, and did, overcome accusations of corruption that have dogged him for years. In 2004, he was investigated in connection with illegal transfers of government money into the accounts of his Unidad Nacional para la Esperanza (UNE) party. Initially denying the charge, he eventually fessed up partially, acknowledging, "A check had been found," and returned the money, said to have been around US$65,000. The investigation led to the imprisonment of controller general Oscar Dubon Palma. Charges against Colom were dropped, but he lived for a time under the shadow of accusations that he used political influence to escape justice.

To some observers, the runoff election turned not so much on rewarding the better candidate but rather on eliminating the worst. Saddled as he was with a reputation for wartime atrocities and a predilection for iron-fisted rule, former Gen. Otto Perez Molina was eliminated (see NotiCen, 2007-11-08). Now Colom must live up to his promise to root out the corruption that has become synonymous with government in Guatemala and with which he has been associated.

To do that, he must face up to what one analyst calls the central paradox of Guatemalan government. "To achieve power, a political party needs the support of corrupt actors motivated by illicit profit," writes analyst Matthew Creelman. "Nevertheless, once in power, no party can govern effectively due to the presence of these corrupt actors. Without confronting this reality directly, the government-elect runs the risk of ending up like the fisherman in Hemmingway's Old Man and the Sea--catching one of the greatest opportunities the country offers, only to arrive in port four years later with nothing more than the bones of what was an ambitious political project."

Creelman gained his perspective on governmental...