So in a total shocker it appears that the runoff will be between two left of centre candidates! Any speculation as to who would be favoured in the runoff between Torres and Arevalo? Who would more rightwing voters view as the "lesser of two evils" or does it even work that way in Guatemala?
Sandra Torres is about as left-wing as Ron DeSantis at this point, on top of being a venal, corrupt opportunistic career politician. Since 2019, she's more or less stopped even pretending to be left-of-centre, to the point that this year she proclaimed that communism and socialism don't exist and made clear that social programs (the sort of thing she peddles in her campaigns) aren't socialist. Her running-mate is an evangelical pastor from a church which rants about the globalists and Satanic rites, her campaign rhetoric heavily invokes God and the family and her platform is filled with right-wing law and order promises like militarizing public security and her party (UNE) has continued to ally itself with all sorts of corrupt, criminal local clans (party labels and ideological principles are extremely lax for the Guatemalan political class). In Congress over the past four years, her faction of the UNE largely supported the administration's policies, even though Giammattei kept his 2019 promise to 'lock her up', and she's likely received underhanded support from the corrupt and politically-biased attorney general in clearing the charges against her (illegal financing of her 2015 campaign).
Torres has a very large 'anti-vote' or negative vote that's led her to lose two presidential runoffs in a row, in 2015 and 2019, allowing for the comfortable victories of right-wing kleptocrats Jimmy Morales (2015) and Alejandro Giammattei (2019). Torres is very unpopular, particularly amongst the wealthier urban population, because she's widely perceived as a grubby, venal, self-serving corrupt career politician and opportunist (most infamously divorcing her husband, then-president Álvaro Colom, in order to circumvent constitutional provisions to run for president herself in 2011), as well as a dangerous populist who peddles social programs/welfare programs seen as clear vote-buying/clientelistic schemes (obviously the right-wing governments have done the exact same thing). Torres has interpreted her anti-vote as being the result of a strong 'conservative vote', and to some extent she's right, hence why since 2019 she has shifted very far to the right in a (so far) failed attempt to win more votes in urban areas (this year's results indicate that she's failed again - she got just 5.5% in Guatemala City and 9.6% in the department of Guatemala.
Bernardo Arévalo is the son of former president Juan José Arévalo (1945-1951), the first democratically-elected president in Guatemalan history and 'spiritual socialist' who was succeeded by Árbenz. His second-place finish was very much unexpected and seems to be down to a very strong urban vote (nearly 30% in Guatemala City). Arévalo campaigned heavily on corruption and against the political establishment, and unlike Jimmy Morales, his rhetoric seems to be rather genuine and he isn't the pawn of the right-wing kleptocratic system. His success is unexpected good news. Up against him, rather than the latest pawn of the right-wing kleptocratic system, I'm not sure how Torres performs, and how well Arévalo can attract right-wing votes. However, it's worth noting that Torres' performance is her worst result so far (all while her still placing first is a testament to the continued strength of the UNE as a political machine in more rural and poor departments).
