Alejandro Giammattei

Alejandro Giammattei

Alejandro Eduardo Giammattei Falla (born March 9, 1956 in Guatemala City ) is a Guatemalan politician and member of the conservative Vamos party . After winning the second round of the 2019 presidential election , he became president of Guatemala , taking office on January 14, 2020.

Career

Alejandro Giammattei is a trained surgeon . He participated in the presidential elections in 1985, 1988 and 1990 as general coordinator of the electoral process. He then worked as a consultant for various companies until 2000 and twice applied for Mayor of Guatemala City without success. From 2005 to 2007 he was the head of the national prison administration. On September 25, 2006, under his leadership, 7 prison inmates were killed while the police and the military stormed a prison. According to a later UN report, these killings were equivalent to illegal executions. Giammattei was therefore in custody for almost a year and was finally acquitted in 2010 for lack of evidence.

Before 2019, Giammattei ran three times in the presidential elections of Guatemala. The first attempt was in the 2007 presidential election year with the Gran Alianza Nacional party (GANA, now Partido Crecer ). He received 17% of the vote and narrowly missed the runoff election. The second attempt was made in 2011 with the Centro de Acción Social , but it was associated with many difficulties that led to the party being dissolved because the required minimum percentage of votes was not achieved. In the 2015 elections he ran for the Fuerza party . Here he took fourth place in a field of fourteen candidates with 6% of the vote.

In the 2019 presidential election , Giammattei became a presidential candidate for the Vamos party. He lost the first round of voting on June 16, 2019 with 13.95% of the vote (second place), but won the runoff election against Sandra Torres on August 11, 2019 with around 59.53% of the vote.

Political opinions

Giammattei takes conservative views and positions. In the 2019 election campaign, he promised to reintroduce the death penalty in Guatemala to combat gang crime. He takes positions that are negative towards abortion and the legal equality of homosexual persons.

Personal

Alejandro Giammattei has been married to Rosana Cáceres since February 11, 1989 and has three children. He has suffered from multiple sclerosis for years and is therefore dependent on crutches.

criticism

He is accused of human rights violations during his time as head of the nationwide prison administration.

Web links

Commons : Alejandro Giammattei  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Alejandro Giammattei wins Guatemala's presidential race. Retrieved August 13, 2019 . 
2. ^ Giammattei sworn in as President of Guatemala. In: ORF.at . January 15, 2020, accessed January 15, 2020 . 
3. ↑ tagesschau.de: Guatemala: A Conservative Against Poverty and Violence. Retrieved August 13, 2019 . 
4. ^ Four things to know about Guatemala's new president-elect. Washington Post, accessed August 13, 2019 . 
5. ↑ Alejandro Giammattei será el próximo presidente de Guatemala tras vencer a Sandra Torres , El Mundo , August 12, 2019, accessed on August 20, 2019.
6. ^ Deutsche Welle (www.dw.com): Guatemala: Alejandro Giammattei wins presidential vote | DW | 08/12/2019. Retrieved August 13, 2019 (UK English). 

predecessor	Office	successor
Jimmy Morales	President of Guatemala since January 14, 2020