in last years election Guatemala took an enormous step forward
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As a foreigner I can't vote, and as so much of Guatemalan history consists of foreigners telling Guatemalans what's best for them (usually with disastrous results), it's probably just as well.

Waiting to register with the PAN party.

But I can observe. Over the last twenty years I have watched Guatemala dig itself out of a horrible civil war (in which foreigners played no small part) and slowly begin to establish a democratic government. It's a painful and difficult process, one far from complete.

Last November the first round of Guatemala's third presidential election was held, which after a runoff election in December, Oscar Berger won.

Guatemala has a somewhat unique problem in this day and age in that, unlike the US, Japan or Europe, the middle class has not historically been dominate politically or economically. The rich had most of the money, the poor had most of the votes and the middle class paid what little taxes were collected. This makes establishing democracy problematic, to say the least.

Add to that the facts that:

The poor are largely Mayan and racially, culturally and linguistically different from the Spanish.
Historically relations between the Mayans and the Spanish have never been good.
Guatemalans have little experience with democratic government.

Imagine the US in a similar (and luckily hypothetical) situation. Say rural, poor, uneducated and (justifiably) angry Blacks made up sixty percent of the voting public.

One candidate promises (after a period of economic austerity) to develop the countries infrastructure and establish an honest and efficient civil service so that eventually the lives of all citizens will improve. That candidate is pure upper class white ...and very rich.

The other candidate, while white, is not upper class. He presents himself as the "people's candidate"; and simply plays the race card. Such is politics.

Who do you think would win? Anger usually trumps logic.

"Usually" being the operative word, because in Guatemala's case anger lost. It wasn't even close. Of course, elections are seldom, if ever, won with logic alone and indeed, this election was a vicious dog fight.

However when it came time to vote the vast majority of Guatemalans realized that this was not just an election for the presidency. At stake was Guatemala's future as a democratic country and democracy won in a landslide.

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