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Guatamela ex dictator opposed by economic elite

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http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/reuters11-06-085800.asp?reg=AMERICAS

Ex-dictator faces moneyed elite in Guatemala vote

By Frank Jack Daniel

GUATEMALA CITY, Nov. 6 — Efrain Rios Montt, a former military dictator accused of human rights atrocities 20 years ago during Guatemala's civil war, is hoping to win back power on Sunday -- this time at the ballot box in presidential elections.


But the Central American nation's economic elite, fuming in the wings since it lost power in 1999, has its own man in the race, and polls show him ahead of the populist ex-dictator.
Newspaper polls put Rios Montt and his ruling Guatemalan Republican Front, or FRG, a distant third to business candidate Oscar Berger and his GANA coalition.
Running second is Alvaro Colom, a left-leaning career politician who ran in 1999 and whose candidacy is expected to force a second round run-off in December.
Rios Montt's team dismisses the opinion polls because they are published by newspapers that back Berger's candidacy. Analysts also say he could have more support than polls show.
The former general's candidacy has added a large dose of tension to just the second presidential race since 1996 peace accords ended a 36-year civil war between leftist guerrillas and a series of right-wing governments.
Some 200,000 people were killed in the conflict and Guatemala remains a violent, unstable country. Human rights activists have again come under attack in the last two years and about two dozen people have been killed in the current election campaign.
''We are very worried that on November 9 there will be a fair amount of violence all over,'' said Rigoberta Menchu, a Maya Indian leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner
Rights groups accuse Rios Montt of ordering massacres in Maya Indian villages in a ''scorched earth'' offensive during his 1982-83 rule at the height of the civil war.

PELTED WITH STONES
On campaign stops, war survivors have twice pelted the 77-year-old Rios Montt with stones. The U.S. State Department has said it would have trouble working with him if he won.
''It is obscene that Rios Montt is a candidate, his time in power was barbarous,'' said Leon Colaj, 44, who left his Indian village in 1982 after nine family members were killed or disappeared.
Rios Montt calls on countrymen to put the war behind them. He appeals to the poor Indian majority with pledges to crack down on criminals and swipes against Berger's wealthy backers.
''We cannot vote for those who have never dirtied a shoe or swung a machete,'' he said at a recent rally.
An evangelical, Rios Montt can inspire fanatical devotion.
In July hooded supporters rampaged through Guatemala City's posh business district brandishing iron bars after a court ruling barred him from running. The ruling was later reversed.
A victory by Berger would signal a return to power by a traditional agricultural and banking elite hit hard by four years of minimum wage increases and tax increases under President Alfonso Portillo and the FRG.
Berger campaigns on a platform of throwing out a corrupt government and creating jobs by stimulating business. He and his supporters accuse the FRG of hiding a mountain of graft amid populist rhetoric.
It is ''probably the most corrupt government in the history of Guatemala,'' said chicken and construction magnate Dionisio Gutierrez, one of the country's richest men.
FRG leaders label Berger and his backers poor losers desperate to regain power.
''GANA is the extreme right which governed this country for a long time,'' Finance Minister Eduardo Weymann told Reuters. ''Their dream is to return to the status quo.''
Colom presents himself as the a progressive ''third way'' alternative to two corrupt establishments and says Rios Montt ''still has blood under his nails.''
(Additional reporting by Greg Brosnan)



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Crimes chill guatemala politics { November 6 2003 }
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Guatamela ex dictator opposed by economic elite
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