By Chris Covert
Rewritten from English language source A hat tip to Mexico's Animal Politico for additional information
A retired Guatemalan Army general and former intelligence operative has won the first round of Guatemala's presidential elections, according to English and Spanish language news sources.
General Otto Pérez Molina, who headed the Guatemalan Army intelligence unit through the turbulent years of the early 1980s won the first round with 36 percent of the vote. News sources say Perez Molina fell short of his predicted finish.
Industrialist Manuel Baldizon, who is running as a populist, won 23.4 percent of the vote setting up a final vote on November 6th. Perez Molina is expected to win the final round easily.
Perez Molina is considered to be a conservative and a hardliner in Guatemala's war on drugs, who has promised a mano dura or firm hand in dealing with the violence associated with drug trafficking.
Los Zetas has made Guatemala their territory for transshipment of drug into Mexican and on to the US. The violence associated with the activities was so bad earlier this year the now outgoing president Alvaro Colom was forced to ask the Guatemalan legislature to declare a 30 day state of emergency in one department.
The presidential elections went through into an uproar when president Colom's wife, Guatemala's first lady Sandra Torres, attempted to circumvent Guatemala's law against relatives running for president by divorcing her husband. Her attempt was short lived as Guatemala's high court ruled she could not run.
Senora Torres' antics subseqently left president Colom's coalition party, the Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE) without a candidate to run.
The only leftist candidate to run in this year's election was Nobel Peace Prize winner and literary fraud Rigoberta Menchu, who received less than three percent of the vote.