RIOS MONTT CONCEDES, AND OTHER POST-ELECTION

UNCLAS GUATEMALA 002948 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR EAID PHUM GT SUBJECT: RIOS MONTT CONCEDES, AND OTHER POST-ELECTION DEVELOPMENTS ¶1. Summary: On November 14, FRG presidential candidate Rios Montt publicly accepted the election results which put an end to his presidential aspirations. No challenges have been filed to the results of the national elections (and only minor challenges in municipal races). The Supreme Electoral Tribunal told reporters that many of the technical and administrative problems experienced in the first round of the election would be corrected before the second round. Berger began campaigning in the countryside immediately after his first round victory, and Colom took a week's holiday in California. The losers in the November 9 election are beginning to line up behind Berger or Colom for the second round. End summary. ¶2. In the first public appearance since his electoral defeat, FRG candidate Efrain Rios Montt ran a TV spot on November 14 acknowledging his loss in the November 9 elections. Speaking for the FRG, he said "we have accepted the results of the first round of elections, and we recognize the results cited by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal." He went on to thank his supporters for voting for the FRG and giving it a large bloc in Congress. The period in which challenges to the elections could be filed expired on November 14. Challenges were filed to the results of municipal elections in a handful of small towns, and the elections will be repeated in five rural municipalities where ballots were burned on election day. ¶3. The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) held a press conference on November 14 in which President Bolanos said that the TSE would be making adjustments to voting procedures in the second round of elections on December 28 to correct some of the problems that resulted in long lines and significant voter frustration during the first round. Among the changes, the TSE plans to increase training for the officers manning the voting tables, and to make sure that TSE officers at each voting site are better prepared to address problems involving the voter registration list. Noticeably absent from the proposed changes were any mention of reducing the number of voters per table or correcting the underlying problems with the voter registration list itself. ¶4. The second round campaign is already in full swing for GANA candidate Oscar Berger, while Alvaro Colom took the week off to visit Disneyland with his wife and stepson. Berger, recognizing that he lost much of the rural vote in the first round to Colom, spent the week after the first round campaigning in small towns around the country (Salcaja and Coatepeque in the west, and Gualan and Esquipulas in the east). ¶5. The losers in the November 9 first round election are beginning to line up behind the remaining two candidates. The PAN Executive Committee printed a full page add in the major dailies calling on their supporters to vote for Alvaro Colom in the second round, through influential PAN leader Abraham Rivera and a number of newly-elected PAN mayors came out endorsing Berger. The FRG has not endorsed either candidate in the second round, and apparently does not intend to. HAMILTON