Guatemalan tribal leader aspires to be president

Indigenous leader Thelma Cabrera Pérez registered on Sunday (01/22/2023) as a candidate for the presidency of Guatemala in the general elections on June 25th.

Cabrera announced her registration on her social networks to win the Central American country’s presidency and improve on her surprise fourth place finish in the 2019 elections.

She will be accompanied by former Guatemalan human rights lawyer Jordán Rodas, who served as Ombudsman from 2017 to 2022.

Cabrera and Rodas were nominated as presidential and vice-presidential candidates by the left-wing political group Movimiento para la Liberación por los Pueblos (MLP) last December.

On June 25, Guatemala will hold elections that will elect a president, 160 members of Congress, 20 members of the Central American Parliament and 340 mayors for the 2024-2028 term.

In the 2019 election, Cabrera came fourth with 456,000 votes (10% of the votes), behind Édmond Mulet (11%, Alejandro Giammattei (13%), and Sandra Torres (25%).

Giammattei beat Torres in the runoff that year.

Cabrera, an indigenous Maya Mam ethnic group, is a small farmer and human rights defender and has been a member of the Committee for Rural Development (Codeca) for more than two decades, which brings together more than 200,000 people.

As Attorney General, Rodas was known for being critical of the governments of Jimmy Morales (2016-2020) and Alejandro Giammattei, and for being a staunch opponent of corruption in Guatemala.

According to several analysts, Cabrera and Rodas have good prospects for the presidential candidacy, which is why they expect that the extreme right and some circles close to corruption will try to prevent their participation in the elections.

So did former anti-corruption prosecutor Thelma Aldana, who was disfellowshipped from the 2019 election and exiled to the United States on an alleged case of corruption that has yet to be proven.

With information from latinapress