Guatemala's first lady divorces "for her country"
1 of 2. Guatemala's first lady Sandra Torres holds a news conference in Guatemala City March 24, 2011.
Credit: Reuters/Stringer
GUATEMALA CITY |
GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Most loving couples hope their marriage will last "until death us do part". But for Guatemala's first lady, politics got there first.
Sandra Torres tearily announced on Thursday she had divorced her husband President Alvaro Colom for the sake of the nation, thereby hoping to skirt a law in Guatemala that blocks the president's relatives from running for office.
A constitutional clause dating from Guatemala's transition to democracy in the mid-1980s after decades of autocratic rule prevents family members of the president from taking power.
But Torres, who was already a divorcee, hopes to step into Colom's shoes after an election later this year.
An ambitious politician who many analysts say wields significant power behind the scenes in Colom's center-left National Union of Hope (UNE) party, Torres said she was putting the Guatemalan people before her own personal happiness.
"I am getting a divorce from my husband, but I am getting married to the people," the 51-year-old Torres said at a news conference, fighting back tears. She called the decision, which will force the first couple to live apart, "very difficult."
"I am not going to be the first or the last woman who decides to get a divorce, but I am the only woman to get a divorce for her country," added Torres, Colom's third wife.
The couple quietly filed for divorce by mutual consent in a family court on March 11 but the news was not made public until this week. The couple refused to say whether they would remarry later and declined to talk about their living arrangements.
While the constitution explicitly bans blood relatives of the president and vice president from running for office, it is unclear what the rule is on ex-spouses and the electoral court will have to decide if Torres will be allowed to run.
Opposition politicians blasted the move, with the leading right-wing Patriot Party (PP) calling it "electoral fraud."
PP candidate Otto Perez Molina, an ex-general who commanded troops at the height of Guatemala's 36-year civil war, is leading polls ahead of the first round of voting in September.
Perez Molina lost to Colom in 2007 and is running again on a platform of fighting crime in the small Central American nation which is renowned for its ecological diversity but also has one of the highest murder rates in the western hemisphere.
The constitution bans former dictators and religious figures from running for president and does not allow re-election, possibly raising questions about the candidacies of other figures in the wide cast of presidential hopefuls.
Zury Rios, the daughter of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt, is eyeing a bid, as are evangelical preacher Harold Caballeros and former President Alvaro Arzu.
Rights activists accuse Zury's father of masterminding some of the most brutal government-backed massacres in the 1960-1996 conflict between security forces and leftist guerrillas.
(Writing by Mica Rosenberg; Editing by Kieran Murray)
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Since she and her husband entered government, they have weakened the electoral tribunal (an independent election commission that supervised the election process to ensure that the process would be fair and democratic) by attacking each of the members of the tribunal and slowly replacing them. They have also weakened the judicial branch – most judges in Guatemala are either corrupted or so afraid for their lives that they will not stand in her way.
It seems she has been preparing for this since her husband took power. She controls the budgets of the education and health ministries knowing that any money left unused at the end of each year would go into her “social program.” Needless to say the effectiveness and impact of the ministries has declined.
Her social programs have been speculated to be used for the manipulation of masses and many experts believe she will again use them when it comes to purchasing votes. Additionally, the recent initiative to change citizens voting ID (from the CEDULA to the RENAP ID) provides a lot of room for manipulation when counting who has voted.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Guatemala, do your research. The country has declined tremendously in the past four years. Not only has the economy suffered, but violence, well organized gangs and drug traffic have made it one of the most violent countries in Latin America. According to the World Health Organization, Guatemala has an average of 50 deaths per 100,000 citizens and in some cities it is more than 200 deaths (the world average is 11 deaths per 100,000 citizens, and the Latin America average is 23 deaths per 100,000). The Colom government has done very little to reinforce authority in the country, and many believe it is due to their personal incentives and their strong relationships with drug lords.
Additionally, many that have publicly decried Mrs. Torres’ cruel and manipulative ways in the past have paid for it with death – search Hugo Arce.
As a woman I have to say it will be terrifying if Sandra Torres gets power – she will not let it go four years from now. And it will be very sad. Guatemala will join Venezuela in what The Economist describes as a “hybrid-democracy” where populism dominates, many innocent people suffer, and weak institutions are only there for show.
Guatemala is such a beautiful country with kind and hard-working people, they do not deserve this.
If there is a time to contain her, it is now. Once she is approved to run for office, it will be too late.
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