Miguel Angel Sandoval
On August 1, 2023, Luis Von Anh published on social networks his decision to support Semilla with the amount of $100,000 (dollars) to finance his electoral campaign. It was an unusual gesture, like lightning in a serene sky, a commonplace to explain a surprise, an unprecedented event. In effect, it is a businessman from Chapín who calmly says: I support Semilla financially because I believe that they can make important changes in the country. In addition, this support makes it public and declares it to the treasury. It is certainly a novelty. And this has its counterpart.
This is due to the fact that in the national environment the issue of the relationship between party financiers and businessmen or citizens with unknown trades has been part of the framework of corruption in electoral campaigns. All due to the fact that clandestine financing, since they cannot be called otherwise, have always had open, clear, or suggested conditions, in double language, with allusions, etc. But they commit the future ruler to pay the favors. Something is known about this in our country.
Just as a sample, an audio has been circulating for some time in which, without a doubt, a conversation between Sandra Torres and Gustavo Alejos is heard, in which they speak of someone with whom Alejos has contact, who would be willing to donate about 40 million quetzales to the UNE campaign at that time. Whether he did it or only in part, no record remains. The businessman did not say how much he had contributed to the electoral campaign, nor did Gustavo Alejos say this mouth is mine, except Sandra Torres who would have been the beneficiary in his proselytizing campaign.
A friend who was part of the UNE in a private conversation commented that, in the 2015 campaign, the cost of it would have been about 250 million quetzales. And that only on the so-called D-day, that is, the day of the voting, the figure could have been around 40-50 million. Without counting the times “gifted” on 4 TV channels and 15 radios, by the Angel of Democracy, as the television owner Ángel Gonzales pretended to be for years.
All this is part of the campaign costs that are managed in this country and what is reported to the TSE is barely 10%. Businessmen do not declare anything about this, since it is not necessary and the business does not require it, since it is business to invest in one or more candidates, on the eve of the elections, in order to have, as they say in the political world, the right of doorknob. with the next government.
It is for this reason, among many others, that, at the time, around the year 2018, Cicig published a documented study, on the participation of several recognized businessmen, for having given their support behind the scenes, in the dark, without knowing reported nothing, to the campaign of Jimmy Morales and his party FCN-Nación. Well, the businessmen were sent to trial and after that, a highly controversial judicial process that undoubtedly explains, at least in part, the expulsion of Cicig from the country by the government of comedian Morales.
“The freedom to choose and be elected on equal terms is put at risk since electoral competition becomes asymmetrical when certain political options raise disproportionate amounts of funds.” Pl. 9.11.2018. This is one of the paragraphs of a Prensa Libre chronicle on the indicated dates, on the subject of illegal financing of political parties during electoral campaigns that Cicig had presented. While the digital media No Fiction, referred to the moment in which the businessmen prosecuted for having provided financing without declaring it, did their mea culpa in an unusual press conference, such as the announcement made by Luis Von Ahn about his support for Semilla.
“They appeared casual and elegant, aged. Felipe Bosch of Negocios Bursátiles Consolidados S.A; Guillermo Castillo from Cervecería Centroamericana; José Torrebiarte Novella of Cementos Progreso S.A; Salvador Paiz from the Paiz del Carmen PDC Group; Fraterno Vila de Ingenio San Diego SA; Andrés Botrán from the Santa Ana Sugar Mill; Ramiro Samayoa of Ingenio Pantaleon and Herbert González of Ingenio Palo Gordo…In Guatemala, financing political campaigns has always been a process fraught with darkness.” Non Fiction 02/25/2021
Undoubtedly something is changing in the country, or a gap is being opened for those changes to take place. In which there is an influence of the entire democratic spirit that is unleashed after 25J. Of course that’s not all. That there is a long way to go, that the gesture of the creator of Duolingo is just that of a swallow, but from these lines it can be affirmed that it is a swallow that, if it can make it summer, then from now on, the parties will have to explain where they come from their funds come out, who are the names of their financiers, and what are the amounts they provide them.
By way of example, one could perfectly ask the candidate of the ruling party, where the funds for the payment of his campaign came from and if he has the audacity to invent data, names, figures, etc., that say where his exaggerated resources come from and then We are going to realize that they come from the national coffers, since these are funds that were diverted for that campaign that he finally did not raise and that now has him in the condition of being one of the best financed losers.
It is because of these realities that campaign financing becomes a barrier for many political parties, and for this reason it is stated in another part of these articles, that parties with illegal resources and financing, under the table, not declared, nor by the parties or the financiers, they are the ones who can pay for million-dollar campaigns in mega billboards and other ways, that with the autistic TSE as it was in the first part of the campaign and pre-campaign, allowed the parties with more money to steal the exit as it is said in the races of whatever. Although as we saw, that does not guarantee anything.
I am not saying anything about the more than clandestine financing of the drug trafficker, which in countries like ours have been in charge of financing not a few mayors, many deputies and a few presidential candidates and their parties. For this reason, I can say with pleasure that the gesture of the creator of Duolingo in publishing his support for the Seed campaign is very meritorious. We advance.
