Comedian Jimmy Morales elected new president in Guatemala

Supporters cheer for Guatemalan president-elect Jimmy Morales as results become clear on October 25, …

Jimmy Morales won Guatemala’s election by a landslide on Sunday, defeating former First Lady Sandra Torres by almost 40 percentage points (with 70 percent of precincts reporting.) Morales, a former comedy actor, benefited from his outsider status in the heat of Guatemala’s ongoing corruption scandal.

“With this election you have made me president”.

“In the name of the Mexican people, I congratulate Jimmy Morales for his triumph in the presidential election of Guatemala”, Nieto said in a statement. In the USA, Trump, Dr. Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina – three GOP candidates who have never held political office before – are topping the polls in 2016’s GOP presidential primaries.

“He has no program and no team”, said Hugo Novales, a political analyst at Guatemalan think tank ASIES. Mr. Ovalle participated in military operations in northern Guatemala during the early 1980s at the time of one such massacre.

Morales’ campaign was staunchly anti-establishment and appears to have capitalized on the electorate’s disillusionment with their most recent government. His National Convergence Front party was founded by top army veterans of the gruesome 36-year civil war that ended in 1996.

Morales will have to govern with just 11 seats in the 158-seat Congress.

While Morales did win a majority of votes, he didn’t win a clear mandate. “In his TV shows, as a comedian, he always makes fun of indigenous people, our customs and the way we speak”.

Others worry about the policy agenda of the former comic and theology student, who threatened to revive a territorial dispute with neighboring Belize.

Many saw Morales’ victory as a sign of the growing frustration with traditional politicians in the country.

The protests began in April after a multimillion-dollar corruption scandal involving bribery at the customs agency was unveiled by Guatemalan prosecutors and a United Nations commission that is investigating criminal networks in the country.

Despite his show business background, Morales billed himself as the common candidate, calling his success a “brave vote, a vote full of hope, a vote which wants to put an end to corruption”.

Asked on Sunday what he would do if the CICIG accused him or his ministers of corruption, Morales said he would let any investigations run their course and that “neither the president nor the vice president would be exempt”.

Morales had campaigned entirely on the theme of stamping out corruption (campaign slogan: “Neither corrupt, nor a thief”), for which he says, as president, he will have “zero tolerance”.

Morales also told Breitbart News he believes that right now it is better for many Guatemalans to risk mass migration through Mexico to the United States – either legally or illegally – but he believes that is something that can and must change.