Alejandro Giammattei

Giammattei was the general coordinator of the electoral processes in 1985, 1988, and 1990. He gained recognition at both the national and international level under the orders of former Vice President of the Republic of Guatemala Arturo Herbruger Asturias.

He has been a consultant to several companies since 2000.[8] After the great failure with the mayoral elections, he was appointed director of the Guatemalan Penitentiary System in 2006. After he took office, he had several conflicts and accusations about the Pavorreal case, leading to his incarceration for a short time. He ceased to be director of the Penitentiary System in 2008.[9]

Giammattei has had three appearances in the general elections for President of Guatemala. The first was in 2007, with the then Official Party Great National Alliance GANA with strong participation. The second was in 2011 with the Social Action Center Party but with many difficulties, which caused the Party to be dissolved due to not reaching the minimum percentage of votes required by the TSE. In the elections of 2015, he joined the presidency with the FUERZA party.[10]

Giammattei and his predecessor, Jimmy Morales.

Giammattei became the presidential candidate for the Vamos party in the 2019 presidential elections. He placed second in the first round behind Sandra Torres on June 16, 2019 with 13.95% of the vote, but won the second round against the latter on August 11, 2019 with 57.96% of the vote.

On January 14, 2020, Giammattei assumed office as president of the Republic of Guatemala, succeeding Jimmy Morales.

Guatemala experiences a political crisis in November 2020, following the adoption of a controversial budget. Most of the funds are earmarked for privately managed infrastructure and neglect the fight against poverty and child malnutrition, which affects nearly half of all children under five, while generating an increase in public debt. Congress was burnt down following the repression of a demonstration by the police, while the Vice President, Guillermo Castillo Reyes, calls on Alejandro Giammattei to resign for "the good of the country ". This crisis came at a time when the government was also facing criticism for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, as hospitals quickly became saturated and the Ministry of Health was accused of withholding information about the pandemic.[11]

Giammattei has vowed to bring back the death penalty and pledged to "crush violent gangs, fight poverty to stop migration and end 'disgusting' corruption."[12] He is against same-sex marriage and abortion, and supports using the military for civilian security.[13]

During his visit to Israel in December 2019, he pledged to have Lebanese Hezbollah declared a "terrorist organization", declaring that "the friends of Israel are the friends of Guatemala, and the enemies of Israel are our enemies.[14] At the same time, he considers to align the policy of Israeli settlements to that of the United States a month earlier.[15]

In 2019, he calls the Venezuelan government a "dictatorship" and says he wants to maintain the same diplomatic line as his predecessor Jimmy Morales towards Venezuela, a country with which Guatemala has severed diplomatic relations.[16]

Alejandro Giammattei married Rosana Cáceres on February 11, 1989 and they have three children: Marcela, Estéfano and Alejandro Giammattei.[8] Alejandro and Rosana were separated by the time Alejandro launched his presidential campaign in 2019.[17][18] As result of the divorce, Marcela serves as First Lady of Guatemala.[1][2] He cites Mahatma Gandhi as his most admired world figure.[19] Giammattei suffers from multiple sclerosis and uses crutches in order to walk.[20]

In September 2020, President Giammattei got sick with the coronavirus and has since recovered.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Alejandro Giammattei.

• Profile in Vamos party's website (in Spanish)
• Biography by CIDOB (in Spanish)