Will new Guatemalan president change relations with Belize?

It was an event that may not have registered with many Belizean households but over the weekend, Guatemalan national elections ended with Social Democrat Alvaro Colom topping the polls. The fifty-six year old beat his rival, retired general Otto Perez Molina, with fifty-two point seven percent of the vote to Perez’s forty-seven point three. News Five first met Colom in January 2004 when we attended the inauguration of his mother-in-law, Theresa Casanova, as Mayor of Melchor de Mencos. At that time Colom was already a front running presidential candidate and News Five’s Janelle Chanona took the opportunity to ask him his views on the Guatemalan claim to Belize.

Alvaro Colom, President-elect, Guatemala
“Belice is a priority for us. We have to solve the problem with that we have with the border. I think that our people like to be… that the problem will have a good resolution.”

We also note that Colom is the brother-in-law of former Chief Executive Officer of the Belize Social Security Board, Narda Garcia.