Guatemalans in US will help select their next president

LOS ANGELES — Four years ago, when Alejandro Giammattei was elected president of Guatemala, immigrants living in the United States were able to vote for the first time. In that experimental election, 734 votes were counted among the four polling stations installed in Los Angeles, Houston, New York City and Silver Spring, Maryland — a tiny fraction of the more than 5 million votes cast.

But in this year’s presidential contest, scheduled for June 25, there will be voting centers again in Los Angeles and Houston — the two U.S. cities with the largest number of Guatemalan immigrants — as well as in 13 other locations including Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, and Raleigh, North Carolina. Guatemalans living in the United States have until March 25 to register to vote.

Both in Guatemala, a country wracked with violence, corruption and economic inequalities, and in expatriate communities in the U.S., the upcoming elections are stirring a host of anxieties. For Alicia Ivonne Estrada, a Guatemala native and professor of Chicano Studies at Cal State Northridge, they give rise to fear and mistrust deriving from her experience in 2019, when she went to the local consulate to vote but wasn’t allowed to cast a ballot.

“There was an endless amount of bureaucracy that was invented” at the last minute, “and they did not allow the population that wanted to vote from abroad to do so,” said Estrada, a specialist in her country’s diaspora.

Delegations from the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, or TSE, of Guatemala will hold registration events on U.S. soil with the aim of expanding the electoral rolls and promoting participation among the migrant population.

“The importance of the vote lies in the power of the people to seek the changes they want,” said Ingrid Soto, head of the TSE’s foreign vote.