The daughter of a former dictator, a former diplomat with many years of service at the UN and a former first lady have the best chances of victory in the first round of the presidential elections held today in Guatemala, according to opinion polls.

They range from the ultra-conservative right to the center-left, but in a country with a majority deeply religious Catholic population, all three favorites say they oppose same-sex marriage and abortion.

Suri Rios

Right-wing candidate Suri Rios, 55, is the daughter of former dictator Efrain Rios-Mont, who seized power in a 1982 military coup before being toppled a year later.

Ms Rios had been unable to run in the previous election, in 2019, as the Constitution barred relatives of the dictator who was on trial for genocide and crimes against humanity.

He says he will adopt the model of the “war” that President Naguib Bukele has declared in neighboring El Salvador against the maras, the gangs that sow terror in Central America’s so-called northern triangle.

A lawyer from 1996 to 2012, she is married to an American businessman and has a daughter born during her previous marriage to a former member of the US Congress.

Right-wing lawyer and politician Ricardo Mendes Ruiz praises the candidate’s “great power of work” and “deep knowledge of the state”, but former president Alfonso Portillo (2000-2004) praises her insatiable thirst for power.

Edmond Mullet

A former diplomat, 72 years old, he is the candidate of a centrist party he founded in 2020 and is running for the presidency for the second time (he was 3rd in 2019).

Unlike his two main opponents, he criticizes the “war on crime” in neighboring El Salvador.

In addition to the fight against corruption, his program includes the establishment of a unified pension system, the provision of free medicines, the expansion of access to the Internet, the fight against youth unemployment.

A journalist before entering politics, he is married and the father of two children.

In 1992, he was president of the House, then ambassador to the US and the EU.

He continued his career at the UN, where he was Chief of Staff to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (2015-2017), Head of the UN Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) and Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations.

Allegedly facilitating summary adoptions of orphans during the civil war, he was arrested and briefly detained in 1981 before the prosecution was dropped. This case continues to cast its shadow over him anyway.

He is a man of “very tact”, but “his hand does not tremble when he has to make decisions”, says lawyer Estuardo Rodríguez, who participated in his 2019 campaign.

Sandra Torres

The center-left candidate, 67, is the wife of former president Alvaro Colomb (2008-2012), who died this year.

She was an unsuccessful presidential candidate three times (twice in the second round, in 2015 and 2019) after divorcing her husband in 2011 so that she would not be subject to the ban on first-degree relatives of former presidents running for the highest office.

Ms. Torres has focused her campaign on the fight against gangs and also wants to follow the example of the Salvadoran president, Mr. Bukele. He also promises to fight poverty by establishing food aid and education programs.

She was accused of illegally financing her campaign in 2015, but the prosecution was dropped.

After divorcing her first husband in 2002, with whom she had four children, she married Alvaro Colom the following year.

Mrs. Torres has been accused of being authoritarian. Conservative circles have accused her of being a member of a Marxist guerrilla organization during the civil war (1960-1996), something she has always denied.

“She is stubborn and works hard,” admits her former ally, MP Oscar Argeta, who, however, accuses her of often rushing to “set aside” those she deems “no longer useful to her”.