President of Guatemala

Alvaro Colom Caballeros, President of Guatemala

Alvaro COLOM Caballeros, President of Guatemala

Álvaro Colom Caballeros (born 15 June 1951 in Guatemala City) is the President of Guatemala for the 2008-2012 term. He is the leader of the social-democratic National Union of Hope (UNE).

Early years

Colom is the son of Antonio Colom Argueta and Yolanda Caballeros Ferraté, being the fourth of five siblings. Manuel Colom, a former mayor of Guatemala City who was killed by the military in 1979 just after the creation of his political party was approved, was his paternal uncle. He is also the father of Antonio Colom Szarata, the bass player of Guatemalan rock band Viento en Contra. Previously widowed and divorced, he is now married to his third wife, Sandra Torres.
After gaining a degree as an industrial engineer at the University of San Carlos (USAC) he became a businessman involved in a variety of businesses, and a government civil servant, including being the founding General Director of the Fondo Nacional para la Paz and Vice Minister of the Economy before turning to politics. Representing the UNE (Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza) in the 2003 presidential elections he came second in the first round on 9 November, and then lost to Óscar Berger in the second round on 28 December, with the best showing of a left-wing candidate in almost 50 years.

Guatemala 2007 election

Main article: Guatemalan general election, 2007
He was one of the two candidates to reach the second stage of the 2007 presidential election on 9 September 2007 along with Partido Patriota candidate Otto Pérez Molina. At 10:00 p.m. local time on election night, Colom was declared the newly elected president by over five percentage points, 52.7% to 47.3%, with over 96% of polling places counted, becoming Guatemala’s first left-leaning president in 53 years.

Support for Colom by middle and upper classes supposedly dropped after he was accused of receiving money from state funds to finance a small part of his political campaign for the presidential election of 2003. The funds for which he was accused were actually a payment for a service that Fundación de Amigos del País, an NGO supportive of UNE, got from one of the government institutions and later donated the Q500,000 to UNE. Later the charges were dropped for lack of evidence against him. Colom has denied all charges and has claimed to be a victim of political persecution and also returned the money he received from Fundación de Amigos en Acción.

Colom has said that he wants to reduce crime by tackling poverty in Guatemala.

Óscar José Rafael Berger Perdomo, Former President of Guatemala

Óscar José Rafael Berger Perdomo, born on 11 August 1946 in Guatemala City, is the current President of Guatemala.

His family was a part of the upper class with large sugar and coffee holdings. He graduated in law from the private, Jesuit Rafael Landívar University. In 1967 he married Wendy Widmann, also from a land owning Guatemalan family. From the mid seventies he ran a successful skittles parlor. In 1985 he joined Álvaro Arzú’s successful campaign to become mayor of Guatemala City. From January 1991 to June 1999, he was mayor himself.

In the general election held on 9 November 2003, Berger was candidate for the conservative Grand National Alliance after being persuaded out of a retirement spent farming to return to politics. He obtained 34% of the votes, putting him well ahead of Álvaro Colom of the National Union of Hope (26%) and former president Efraín Ríos Montt of the Guatemalan Republican Front (19%).

A run-off vote between Berger and Colom took place on 28 December 2003, which Berger won with a 54% share of the vote. He was sworn in on 14 January 2004.