Guatemala City, by Brenda Larios -AGN- President Alejandro Giammattei congratulated President-elect Bernardo Arévalo and reiterated his invitation to carry out a peaceful transition process.
Through his official social media channels, President Giammattei stated, “I congratulate the Guatemalans for peacefully conducting the 2023 general elections, with few isolated incidents. I also congratulate Bernardo Arévalo and extend the invitation to begin the orderly transition the day after the official announcement of the results.”
This process will take place from the officialization of the results by the Supreme Electoral Court -TSE- until the handover of power on January 14, 2024.
Electoral Runoff
César Bernardo Arévalo de León, the candidate for the Semilla Party, was elected the new President of Guatemala.
Arévalo was declared the winner in the runoff on Sunday, August 20, during the general elections held in all 22 of the country’s departments.
In a press conference, TSE magistrates informed that as of 9:00 PM on the day of the elections, 93% of the processed reports were confirmed, reporting 2,250,414 votes for candidate Bernardo Arévalo.
Meanwhile, the preliminary data accounted for 1,428,885 votes for Sandra Torres.
Arévalo’s Vote
As part of the second electoral round, the President-elect, Bernardo Arévalo, cast his vote at table 185 of his voting center in Guatemala City.
In statements to the press, the presidential candidate highlighted the importance of voting in a democratic process.
Karin Herrera, the elected candidate for the Vice Presidency, cast her vote in a different voting center in the capital city.
Biography
César Bernardo Arévalo de León was born on October 7, 1958. He is a Guatemalan politician, diplomat, sociologist, and writer.
He has been a congressman in the Guatemalan Congress since January 2020 for the political party Movimiento Semilla.
Arévalo is the son of former Guatemalan President Juan José Arévalo Bermejo, who governed from 1945 to 1951.
Amid the 2015 protests, Arévalo and several intellectuals formed an analysis group that later transformed into Movimiento Semilla.
This organization competed for the first time during the 2019 general elections when Arévalo was elected a congressman and assumed office in 2020. In 2022, he was appointed the party’s secretary-general.
Movimiento Semilla selected him as the presidential candidate for the 2023 general elections, joined by the chemist and biologist Karin Herrera as the Vice Presidential candidate. Against all odds, he secured second place with over 600,000 votes in the first round and advanced to the second round.
