US embassy cable - 03GUATEMALA2705

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