The daughter of former Guatemalan dictator Efren Ríos Montt and the wife of a center-left ex-president are leading the polls ahead of the first round of Guatemala’s presidential election on June 25, after campaigning officially kicked off on Monday.

Among the twenty or so candidates, polls indicate that the front-runners, with 20% of voting intentions each, are right-wing candidate Suri Rios, daughter of the late former dictator Rios Mont (1982-1983), and Sandra Torres, the husband of which, Alvaro Colom, was head of state (2008-2011). This is the third attempt for Ms. Torres, an unsuccessful candidate in two previous election contests (2015, 2019).

If none or none of the candidates secures more than 50% of the vote, a second round of elections will be held in August in the Central American state, where gang violence is a scourge and where 59% of the 17 million inhabitants live below the poverty line.

The Supreme Electoral Court (TSE), which has three more nominations to decide, is under heavy criticism for definitively excluding from the election the ballot led by indigenous Thelma Cabrera and former human rights prosecutor Jordan Rodas. Indigenous Maya make up between 42% and 60% of Guatemala’s population, according to varying estimates, yet Ms. Cabreras is only the second indigenous person ever to run for the country’s presidency.

The NGO Guatemala Verifica, for its part, denounced the “elimination” (by the TSE) of “the most powerful parties and candidates” in order to free the field for others.

The endorsement of Suri Rios’ candidacy is also sparking outraged reactions, notably from the collective Front of Resistance Against Electoral Fraud and Dictatorship, which organized a demonstration in the capital on Friday. The critics of Mrs. Rios, who claims the political legacy of her father, consider that the candidacy of the dictator’s daughter is against the Constitution.

General Rios Montt, who seized power in a coup during one of the bloodiest periods of the civil war, marked by massacres of indigenous people, was sentenced in 2013 to serve 80 years in prison for genocide and crimes against humanity. But his conviction was annulled, due to procedural “errors”. A new trial was launched at the behest of Guatemalan justice, but the former dictator died before it was completed in 2018 at the age of 91.