Electoral Panorama / Panorama Electoral

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Álvaro Colom Caballeros of the social democratic-oriented National Unity for Hope (UNE) was elected president of Guatemala in a runoff vote held yesterday, defeating former general Otto Pérez Molina of the right-wing Patriot Party (PP).

Guatemala's Supreme Court of Elections official 2007 election results website reports that with one-hundred percent of the vote tallied, Colom won 1,449,153 votes (52.8%) to 1,294,645 (47.2%) for Pérez Molina. Voter turnout dropped to 48.3%, substantially below the 60.3% turnout attained in the first round of voting last September 9.

Colom, an industrial engineer and textile businessman, will be Guatemala's first left-of-center president in more than five decades. Since the re-establishment of democracy in 1985, the Central American nation has been ruled by centrist or right-wing administrations.