<div style="text-align: justify; "><b style="font-size: 1rem;">Guatemalans go to the polls Sunday with two popular candidates disqualified and several prosecutors and journalists detained or in exile amid a government pushback on anti-corruption efforts.</b><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Twenty-two candidates are in the running with three in a clear lead: a former first lady, a UN diplomat, and an ex-dictator's daughter.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"All the candidates are the same and only come to rob (the people). I still don't know if I'm going to vote," street vendor Nestor Figueroa told AFP in the capital Guatemala City.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Center-leftist Sandra Torres -- the ex-wife of deceased former leftist president Alvaro Colom -- leads with 21.3 percent, according to the most recent poll by the Prensa Libre newspaper, followed by centrist career diplomat Edmond Mulet with 13.4 percent.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In third place, with 9.1 percent, is right-winger Zury Rios, daughter of former military strongman Efrain Rios Montt.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The candidate of President Alejandro Giammattei's party, Manuel Conde, is fourth with 5.8 percent.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The polls indicate a high possibility that the election will go to a runoff on August 20, with no single candidate likely to obtain the 50 percent minimum share of votes required to win in the first round.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Two serious candidates have been ruled out of contention by the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE), in decisions critics have condemned as flawed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Carlos Pineda, who was the poll favorite at the time, lost a Constitutional Court appeal in May against his disqualification by the TSE for alleged irregularities in the registration of his candidacy.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Also out of the running, over allegations of financial impropriety against her vice-presidential running mate, is Thelma Cabrera -- a representative of the Mayan Indigenous group that makes up 40 percent of Guatemala's population.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to the Prensa Libre poll, distrust is high in the TSE and its perceived obscure decision-making, with more than one in ten saying they intended to cast a blank vote in protest.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- 'Manipulated' -</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some 9.4 million of the country's 17.6 million people are eligible to take part in the election to replace conservative Giammattei, accused of increasing authoritarianism.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">About three-quarters of the population disapprove of his leadership of a country riddled with poverty, violence and graft.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The country has a one-term presidential limit.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Observers, rights activists, Indigenous groups and candidate Mulet have criticized what they perceive as increasingly iron State grip on institutions in a bid to protect a corrupt system benefiting those in power.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Under Giammattei, several former prosecutors of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), a UN-backed entity closed by the government in 2019, have been arrested or forced into exile.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Earlier this month, the founder of a newspaper critical of the government was sentenced to six years in prison on charges of money laundering dismissed as fake by press freedom groups.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The newspaper founded by Jose Ruben Zamora has been forced to close, and several of its journalists have fled the country.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Giammattei's Attorney General, Maria Consuelo Porras, is on a US list of "corrupt actors."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"All state institutions, including the electoral (body), are being manipulated by powerful groups linked to corruption and traditional oligarchal power," Edie Cux, director of the local chapter of NGO Transparency International, told AFP.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At stake Sunday, he added, was "the rule of law, democracy and all guarantees and freedoms for the entire population."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- 'Persecution' -</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For his part, Mulet had warned in an interview with AFP that the country was "slowly sliding into an authoritarian model."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">"The persecution of media, journalists, justice operators, politicians... are worrying elements," he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Guatemala is one of the most unequal countries in Latin America, according to the World Bank.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">More than half its inhabitants live in poverty and half of all children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition, according to the UN.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Insecurity is another major election issue. Guatemala's homicide rate is 17.3 per 100,000 inhabitants -- almost three times the world average, according to the UN.&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2022 there were 4,274 murders, half of them attributed to drug trafficking and gangs that are mainly engaged in extortion and contract killings.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Torres and Rios have both evoked the tactics of Nayib Bukele in neighboring El Salvador in his controversial "war" on gangs which has won him adoration at home but opprobrium abroad over rights concerns.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Thousands of Guatemalans flee the country every year in search of a better life abroad, many of them undertaking the dangerous, illegal journey to the United States only to be deported.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Polling stations will open at 7:00 am Sunday and close 11 hours later, with the first results expected within hours.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There will also be voting for 160 members of Congress, 340 mayors and 20 delegates to the Central American Parliament.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Voting is not compulsory. AFP</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>