WITH TWO WEEKS TO GO, VOTER PREFERENCES REMAIN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 GUATEMALA 002705

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/24/2013
TAGS: PGOV KDEM PINR PREL EAID GT
SUBJECT: WITH TWO WEEKS TO GO, VOTER PREFERENCES REMAIN
CONSTANT

Classified By: PolCouns David Lindwall for reason 1.5 (b) and (d).


1. (C) Summary: The polls continue to show GANA candidate
Oscar Berger in a clear lead in the run up to the November 9
national elections, followed by Colom and Rios Montt vying
for second place. Fears of potential electoral fraud are
much diminished, and pre-election violence and electorally
motivated public spending do not appear to exceed the levels
of previous elections. OAS and EU observer missions are
blanketing the country, and the OAS is observing payments to
the ex-PACs to ensure that the payments are not used for
partisan campaigning. The Ambassador has begun a round of
meetings with the four leading presidential candidates and
their teams to reinforce our expectation that the elections
will be free, fair and violence-free, and to establish a
dialogue on bilateral issues with the next government. End
summary.

What the polls say
--------------

2. (U) A poll taken by VoxLatina between October 5-11, and
reprinted in the major dailies on October 20, continues to
list GANA candidate Oscar Berger ahead with 37.2% of the
vote, followed by UNE candidate Alvaro Colom with 21.3% and
FRG candidate Rios Montt with 11.5%. The VoxLatina poll is
consistent with other polls in the lead it gives Berger, but
most polls put the difference between Colom and Rios Montt at
well within the margin of error. The extremely low rating
for Rios Montt is inconsistent with other polling information
and anecdotal evidence of a larger core support base for the
former General. Following are the VoxLatina rankings:

- voter preferences as a percentage of respondents
- July August September October
-------------- --------------
Berger - GANA 36.9 44.4 37.8 37.2
Colom - UNE 13.1 17.1 18.2 21.3
Rios Montt - FRG 7.9 3.3 11.4 11.5
Lopez Rodas - PAN -- 4.1 4.6 6.3

Ambassador meets with Berger
--------------

3. (C) The Ambassador, DCM and PolCouns met with GANA
candidate Oscar Berger, his Vice Presidential runningmate
Eduardo Stein and campaign chairman Eduardo Gonzalez on
October 21 in the first of a series of breakfasts scheduled
with the four leading contenders for the Presidency. Berger
downplayed public concerns over his health (he was recently
operated on for prostate cancer) and said that his campaign
had not missed a beat. Berger does not believe Rios Montt
will make it into the second round of the election campaign,
and said he discounts the possibility of significant fraud on
election day. He also said that it is increasingly unlikely
that he will win in the first round. Vice Presidential
candidate Stein opined that all the last minute government
spending, payments to the former PACs and other manipulation
by the FRG would not alter the election results by more than
4 or 5 percent. The GANA leaders expect that there will be
some local post-electoral violence in communities where the
mayorships are being hotly contested, but do not believe
violence will affect the national election. The Ambassador
noted that the Embassy wants to brief the two winners of the
November 9 election on a wide range of bilateral issues, as
the transition period after the second round election will be
very brief. The GANA leaders welcomed increased engagement
after the first round.

OAS observes PAC payments
--------------

4. (C) Following allegations by the PAN that they had filmed
FRG candidates handing out government compensation payments
to former civil patrol members, the OAS began monitoring the
payment of ex-PACs (which are taking place on military
bases). The MOD gave the OAS mission a list of sites and
dates for the ex-PAC payments, and granted access for the OAS
observers to military bases. The OAS observers began
monitoring these payments in mid-October and have told us
that they have not observed any FRG candidates or electoral
propaganda at the payment sites as alleged by the PAN. The
OAS also told us that the PAN has not given the OAS a copy of
the video purportedly showing FRG candidates handing out the
payments to the ex-PAC.


5. (SBU) The Government has confirmed press reports that the
number of former civil patrol members who are to receive
compensation has risen from 250,000 to 500,000. Vice
President Reyes claimed to the diplomatic corps in a
closed-door meeting on October 23 that the number of
claimants had risen gradually, but steadily, over the last
several months as beneficiaries documented their claims to
compensation. The (opposition) press is portraying it as an
electoral calculation by the FRG, after ex-PACs around the
country have protested against the FRG for failing to deliver
on their compensation promises. While payments to the former
PACs have increased, the pace of actual payments remains
slow, and associations of ex-PACs continue to protest against
the government and the FRG. Large numbers of former PACs
continue to occupy the city square in Mazatenango,
threatening to keep out any FRG campaigners, and ex-PACs have
also threatened to disrupt FRG campaigning in parts of Alta
Verapaz.

Public spending will have little impact on election
-------------- --------------

6. (U) Under a contract from USAID, local NGO CIEN has
conducted a study of how the Portillo government is spending
resources in the months leading up to the elections in ways
that could influence voters. The three studies presented so
far have concentrated on state spending for the compensation
program for the former PAC, the school breakfast program and
the distribution of fertilizers. The CIEN studies have found
that party affiliation has not been a factor in determining
who benefits from the programs, that beneficiaries do not
feel obligated to vote for the FRG as a result of receiving
the benefits and that the election year spending has not been
out of line with the spending of previous governments.


7. (SBU) CIEN Director Maria del Carmen Acena told us that
actual spending on public works projects was less than in
previous election years, though the budget for public works
projects is at record levels. Acena commented that the
biggest difference between the election year spending of the
Portillo government and its predecessors is that previous
governments used budget reserves to cover the spending, while
the FRG has indebted the next government to pay for the
election year largesse. She also said that while previous
governments had built public works that benefited the whole
community, the Portillo government has resorted to "more
populist" cash payments (in the case of the ex-PACs and the
school breakfast program).


8. (SBU) At the meeting (see para 5) with Vice President (and
FRG founding member) Reyes Lopez on October 23, the
Ambassador asked whether the FRG would accept a
TSE-determined result that it did not make it to the second

SIPDIS
round. The Vice President's answer was a categorical "yes,"
but he then listed a half-dozen reasons why he expects the
FRG to "surprise and disappoint a lot of people" on election
night. These included the familiar: under-reported strength
in the interior, the General himself being a candidate, the
strength of mayoral and Congressional candidates and superior
organization. Some of the diplomats took the latter part of
his reply as a de facto negation of the first part. The
Ambassador did not think he went that far.

Plenty of busses
--------------

9. (SBU) The concern of many opposition leaders that the FRG
had contracted all the buses in the country for election day
appears to have passed. News reports (and our inquiries in
rural areas) suggest that bus owners are still looking for
business on election day, and that Electoral Tribunal members
in many of the rural areas we have visited do not believe
there will be a transportation shortage on election day.

Ambassador tries out electoral ink
--------------

10. (U) Challenging public skepticism that the ink used to
mark voters' fingers on election day could be removed to
permit voters to vote more than once, the Ambassador and the
ambassadors of a number of other countries participated in a
public demonstration of the ink by the Supreme Electoral
Tribunal on October 22. The ambassadors emerged with their
fingers blackened, and the press carried the story, complete
with pictures, that the ink is reliable. Much scrubbing and
24 hours later, the ink remains.

Friction between Berger and other opposition candidates
-------------- --------------

11. (SBU) Competing presidential debates held on the nights
of October 21 and 22 exposed the growing tension between GANA
candidate Oscar Berger and the candidates for the other ten
parties opposed to the FRG. Berger and Rios Montt did not
show up at the October 21 debate, sponsored by an
organization widely viewed as sympathetic to the ten smaller
parties. When the organizers of the October 22 debate only
invited the three largest of the ten small parties, the ten
agreed that no one would participate if they all were not
invited. Berger was the only candidate to show up for the
October 22 debate at the packed out National Theater, once
again drawing attention to the growing feud between the
parties opposed to the FRG. Berger's disinterest in seeking
a more collegial relationship with the other opposition
leaders comes across to voters as arrogance, and may limit
his ability to get out the vote of supporters of the other
opposition parties in the second round.

Comment:
--------------

12. (C) With little more than two weeks left before the
first round of balloting, there is scant evidence of the
highly charged political atmosphere that characterized the
first months of the campaign. While polls continue to show
that a large number of Guatemalans believe there will be
fraud in the elections, all of the contenders agree that the
election process itself is virtually tamper-proof. The
presence of large numbers of international observers already
in the countryside has diminished the likelihood of violence
before the voting tables close, though disputed municipal
races historically lead to violent confrontations in some
towns on election night. Teams of Embassy officers are
taking informal soundings on electoral issues in the four
corners of the country, and we will provide snapshot reports
on regional views of the elections over the next two weeks.
HAMILTON