Thelma Cabrera

Thelma Cabrera (born September 21, 1970) is an indigenous (Maya Mam) human rights defender and politician. Cabrera ran for president of Guatemala in 2019 as part of the political party, Movement for the Liberation of Peoples.[1]

Thelma Cabrera
Personal details
Born (1970-09-21) 21 September 1970
El Asintal, Guatemala
Political partyMovement for the Liberation of Peoples

Early life

Born in a peasant campesino family, Cabrera grew up in El Asintal on the west coast of Guatemala and married at the age of 15.[1] She has recounted of how she spent her childhood working barefoot harvesting coffee with her mother and sisters, only to be cheated by those who paid them for their labor.[2]

Politics

Cabrera has been an active member of Peasant Development Committee (Spanish: Comité de Desarrollo Campesino; CODECA), a grassroots human rights organization working to improve the situation of the rural poor of Guatemala. Cabrera was selected to represent CODECA's newly formed political party, Movement for the Liberation of Peoples (Spanish: Movimiento para la Liberación de los Pueblos; MLP), to run in the 2019 Guatemalan general election on June 16, 2019.[3]

On June 15, 2019, Cabrera was polling fifth in a race with 20 candidates.[1] With half of the ballots counted, Cabrera was coming in as fourth with 10.3% of the vote.[4] By the time the majority of the ballots were counted, only the top two candidates, Sandra Torres with 26% of the votes and Alejandro Giammattei with 15% of the votes, are left to compete in a runoff election in August 2019, leaving Cabrera out of the race.[5]

References
  1. Lakhani, Nina (15 June 2019). "Thelma Cabrera: indigenous, female and shaking up Guatemala's election". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 June 2019.
  2. Gereda, Marcela. "¿Quién es Thelma Cabrerar?". Narrativa y Ensayo (in Spanish). Retrieved 15 June 2019.
  3. Gonzalez, Rossy (12 June 2019). "Thelma Cabrera Aspires to Be the First Indigenous Woman President of Guatemala". Cultural Survival. Retrieved 15 June 2019.
  4. Abbott, Jeff (17 June 2019). "Former first lady leads in Guatemala election". Aljazeera. Retrieved 18 June 2019.
  5. Montes, Juan (17 June 2019). "Guatemala Presidential Election Heads to Runoff". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 18 June 2019.


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