mayoral elections
General Otto Perez Molina - Comandante Tito, as he was known in the early eighties, directing operations in the butchering fields of the [Maya] Ixil communities 3 hours north of here - is the founder of the Patriotic Party, and his sneering face on billboards, huge and small, the PP symbol of the fighting Iron Fist, their pumpkin-orange flags and banners, and frenetic pounding music are ubiquitous throughout the country, and especially in the Maya highlands, the very land where the genocide occurred.
On September 11, 2011 the general elections in Guatemala, which determine mayors, congress members and the president, played out as most recent elections have, with normal violence, denouncements of widespread fraud, and destruction of ballots; the culmination of a political campaign in which at least 35 were killed. Two presidential candidates go to the run off on in November, the expected winner Otto Perez Molina, Implicated in war crimes of the past (including genocide), of the Partido Patriota [PP] against Manuel Baldizon of the Libertad Democratic Renovada [LIDER].
