In August, I packed into Guatemala City’s Constitution Plaza alongside thousands of others to watch Bernardo Arévalo, a bookish anti-corruption reformer, give his closing presidential campaign speech. There was something surreal about seeing Arévalo take the stage and make earnest appeals about curbing corruption and governing for the majority as the crowd roared applause.
The Guatemalans I have met are usually cynical about politics and politicians – for good reason. After years of rule by a bloody anti-communist military dictatorship, Guatemala became a democracy in 1985. But corrupt political machines, self-serving business elites and criminal mafias loomed large over every election afterwards.
