Guatemala: Political Parties & Elections

Guatemala's return to civilian, constitutional government in 1985, following decades of military rule and civil war, ushered in a multiparty electoral system that has remained notably fragmented and volatile. Rather than durable ideological platforms, Guatemalan parties have often formed around individual leaders and dissolved within a few election cycles, producing frequent turnover in the parties that control the presidency and the Congress of the Republic.

One of the more durable parties has been the National Unity of Hope (UNE), founded in 2002 by Álvaro Colom, who won the presidency in 2007; its longtime leader Sandra Torres, a former first lady, has run unsuccessfully for president in several subsequent elections, including a 2023 runoff. Corruption scandals have repeatedly reshaped the party system: the Renewed Democratic Liberty party and the FCN-Nación party, whose candidate Jimmy Morales won the presidency in 2015 following mass protests that toppled his predecessor, both later saw their standing collapse.

The 2023 elections marked a significant shift when Movimiento Semilla, a progressive anti-corruption party founded in 2015, advanced its candidate Bernardo Arévalo to a runoff despite polling in eighth place a month earlier. Arévalo defeated Torres in the runoff with roughly 58 percent of the vote, and Semilla also became the second-largest bloc in Congress. Arévalo's victory, and the establishment's subsequent efforts to challenge the results, tested the resilience of Guatemala's electoral institutions.