UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urges Guatemala to follow voter's wish for free, fair voting

The UN Secretary-General expressed “great concern” over elections in Guatemala on Saturday, urging the Central American country to follow voters’ wishes for free and fair voting.

Guatemalans head to the polls on August 20 for a presidential runoff election that will tilt the country to the left, upsetting right-wing power brokers.

A brief statement on behalf of Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called “on the Guatemalan authorities to respect the human rights of its population, including the right to vote at genuine periodic elections which guarantee the free expression of the will of the electors.”

Voters, he said, “should be protected from any form of coercion and from any unlawful or arbitrary interference with the voting process.”

Guatemalans sent two center-left candidates to a runoff election in June, ushering in the country’s first leftist leader in more than a decade.

However, a prosecutor has attempted to suspend the party of one of the candidates, Bernardo Arevalo, and state officials raided his party headquarters on Friday, purportedly in search of documentation indicating irregularities in its establishment.

Arevalo’s surprise appearance in the runoff has alarmed right-wing groups, prompting efforts to derail the election.

Prosecutors dispatched agents to search the Supreme Electoral Tribunal twice, causing the country’s top court to impose an injunction to protect the vote.

Guterres said UN member states “are responsible for ensuring transparent, free and fair elections, free of intimidation and coercion.”

Arevalo, son of a reformist former president, finished second behind Sandra Torres, a former first lady who leads a social democratic party.

Efforts to disqualify Arevalo’s Semilla (Seed) Party have drawn stern rebukes from the United Nations, the United States and the European Union.