Americas Quarterly - Winter 2012

Blasts from the past: Newly elected Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina nd longtime Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega.

Nicaraguans reelected Daniel
Ortega of the Frente Sandinista de
Liberacion Nacional (FSLN) for a sec-
ond consecutive and third overall
term. Ortega, a socialist revolution-
ary who changed the constitution to
permit reelection, has won over vot-
ers with a populist message to help
January, will face challenges—some
of their own doing—in an unstable
region with scant resources, fragile
public institutions, and the constant
threat of organized crime.

The two newly inaugurated Cen- tral American presidents come
from opposite ends of the ideological
to victory (winning by over 7 per-
centage points) in a runoff election
against Manuel Baldizón of the Lib-
ertad Democrática Renovada (LIDER)
party. Pérez Molina’s victory repre-
sents a swing to the Right after his
soft-spoken predecessor—Álvaro Co-
lom, who defeated Pérez Molina in
the 2007 election runoff—served as
Guatemala’s first left-leaning presi-
dent since 1954. (Guatemala’s consti-
tution does not allow for reelection.)

Guatemala swore in a hardline former army general as president, the first time that a former military officer has taken power since the end of military rule in 1986. Otto Pérez Molina, 61, of the conservative Partido Patriota (PP), battled leftist guerillas during a 36-year civil war and skated

What Awaits Pérez Molina
and Ortega

CARLOS JASSO/REU TERS

the poor. He was helped by a decidedly uneven electoral playing field in which state-owned and pro-government media gave the president overwhelming coverage and state social programs were portrayed as party patronage. Ortega’s campaign and presidency have been punctuated by Marxist slogans and discourse reminiscent of Fidel Castro in Cuba and Hugo Chávez in Venezuela—two leaders that Ortega honored in his victory speech. Over the next five years, Nicaraguans can expect more of the same.