GUATEMALA: OSCAR BERGER BELIEVES HE HAS WON MAJORITY OF VOTES IN FIRST ROUND OF ELECTION
Record ID:
328650
GUATEMALA: OSCAR BERGER BELIEVES HE HAS WON MAJORITY OF VOTES IN FIRST ROUND OF ELECTION
- Title: GUATEMALA: OSCAR BERGER BELIEVES HE HAS WON MAJORITY OF VOTES IN FIRST ROUND OF ELECTION
- Date: 9th November 2003
- Summary: (U3) GUATEMALA CITY, GUATEMALA (NOVEMBER 09, 2003) (REUTERS) 1. SLV FIRST PLACE CANDIDATE OSCAR BERGER ARRIVING AT NEWS CONFERENCE 0.08 2. WIDE OF CROWD CHEERING 0.12 3. SCU (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) FIRST PLACE CANDIDATE OSCAR BERGER SAYING: "Today, records were broken with the levels of participation in an electoral event in the history of our country." 0.21 4. WIDE OF CROWDS CHEERING 0.26 5. SCU (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) BERGER SAYING: "Despite the problems that some people had in rural areas, they made their presence known in these results that position us as the winners of the event that ends today." 1.08 6. WIDE OF CROWD CHEERING 1.15 7. WIDE OF BERGER ON STAGE WITH HIS WIFE 1.19 8. SCU (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) BERGER, TALKING ABOUT FORMER MILITARY DICTATOR EFRAIN RIOS MONTT SAYING: "No more privileges and no more impunity, no one is above the law even if they were a general or defacto president. We are going to facilitate the institutions in charge of pursuing criminals." 1.44 9. SMV CROWD CHEERING 1.48 10. SMV BERGER GREETING SUPPORTERS 1.52 (U3) GUATEMALA CITY, GUATEMALA (NOVEMBER 10, 2003) (REUTERS) 11. SLV SECOND PLACE CANDIDATE ALVARO COLOM ARRIVING FOR NEWS CONFERENCE 1.58 12. WIDE OF MEDIA 2.03 13. SCU (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) SECOND PLACE CANDIDATE ALVARO COLOM SAYING: "We are definitely going to the second round and today, the meter goes back to zero. Today, we start a new chapter in Guatemala's democracy." 2.15 14. GENERAL VIEW OF NEWS CONFERENCE 2.19 15. SCU (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) COLOM SAYING: "We are very satisfied, particularly by the participation of the population en masse. I think that Guatemala has started the process of recuperating hope in the democratic process." 2.38 16. SLV COLOM STANDING WITH HIS WIFE, WENDY, LEAVING NEWS CONFERENCE 2.45 17. WIDE OF INTERIOR OF SUPREME ELECTORAL TRIBUNAL 2,54 18. SMV OFFICIALS READING RESULTS OF VOTES FROM SEVERAL DISTRICTS 3.14 19. WIDE OF LARGE SCREEN WITH RESULTS 3.20 (NIGHT SCENES) 20. WIDE OF FIREWORKS AT CELEBRATION OUTSIDE BERGER'S CAMPAIGN HEADQUARTERS 3.27 21. SLV BERGER ARRIVING AT CELEBRATION, WAVING TO SUPPORTERS 3.38 22. VARIOUS OF CROWD CHEERING (3 SHOTS) 3.54 23. GENERAL VIEW OF CROWD (U3) LA GOMERA, GUATEMALA (NOVEMBER 10, 2003) (REUTERS) 24. GENERAL VIEW OF VOTING CENTRE THAT WAS RANSACKED BY UNKNOWN ASSAILANTS, FIRE OUTSIDE BUILDING 3.58 25. VARIOUS OF VOTING MATERIALS STILL BURNING, STREWN ACROSS FLOOR 4.03 26. CLOSE OF FIRE 4.08 27. CLOSE OF DESTROYED VOTING BOOTH LYING ON GROUND / PAN UP TO RAMSACKED VOTING CENTRE 4.20 28. CLOSE OF DESTROYED VOTING MATERIAL (2 SHOTS) 4.30 29. WIDE OF EXTERIOR OF RAMSACKED VOTING CENTRE 4.35 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 24th November 2003 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: GUATEMALA CITY AND LA GOMERA, GUATEMALA
- Country: Guatemala
- Reuters ID: LVADHDGG5L7SZEA7MB9ONOK8CWYL
- Story Text: Preliminary results indicate the Guatemalan
presidential election will go to a second round.
A conservative businessman claimed victory late on
Sunday (November 9) in Guatemala's tense race for
president, saying he had defeated former military dictator
Efrain Rios Montt's bid to regain power.
As official results trickled in, Oscar Berger, the
former Guatemala City mayor, told supporters the party's
numbers showed he might have won the outright majority
needed for an unprecedented first-round victory, amid a
record turnout of voters.
If not, he will face the runner-up, left-leaning career
politician Alvaro Colom, in a second round in December to
decide the Central American nation's second presidential
election since 1996 peace accords ended a 36-year civil
war.
If Rios Montt, who is blamed for civil war atrocities
during his 1982-83 rule, comes in third as Berger claimed
and early results indicated, he will be out of the race.
"Despite the problems that some people had in rural
areas, they made their presence known in these results that
position us as the winners of the event that ends today,"
Berger said.
The heavy turnout -- estimated as high as 80 percent --
sparked some violence and delayed the vote count as polling
stations stayed open late.
In La Gomera, some 115 kilometres south of the capital,
a voting centre was destroyed by an unknown group of
assailants. The group destroyed tables and set fire to
ballots. Police moved into the area and used tear gas to
disperse the group. There were reports of several people
injured.
Voters flocked to the polls, apparently to oust Rios
Montt's ruling Guatemalan Republican Front, or FRG, which
is widely seen as corrupt. Early results had him in third
place.
While Rios Montt made no public statement, his campaign
said he was awaiting results from the countryside, where
the party has strong support.
Colom told a news conference on Monday (November 10) he
believed he was in a dead heat with Berger, as pre-election
opinion polls had predicted.
The race opened war-time wounds and touched sensitive
issues of class and corruption in the Central American
nation of 11 million people, more than half of them Maya
Indians often living in deep poverty.
Survivors and rights groups blame Rios Montt for
massacres in hundreds of Indian villages as part of a
"scorched earth" counterinsurgency campaign at the height
of the war.
Though his candidacy fuelled tension and violence in
the days ahead of the polling, authorities and observers
said the balloting for presidential, legislative and
municipal posts was largely peaceful, aside from isolated
disturbances.
The United States had expressed strong reservations
about Rios Montt, saying he would be difficult to work
with, though he had U.S. backing during his 1980s regime.
Observers applauded the turnout as evidence of
Guatemalans' growing faith in democracy despite rising
political violence, a boom in organised crime and drug
trafficking and attacks on journalists, judges and
activists.
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