I'm John Bachelors, Joseph Umar, Executive Director of Secure Free Society, and Ernesto

Arruja, former foreign minister of the Republic of Brazil.

The elections and their aftermath, the two rounds of election, electioneering in many

countries of Latin America.

The first round eliminates everybody with the top two, and then the second round, for

you must command 50%.

But in Guatemala, which held the first round some weeks past, the two candidates that

emerged, Sandra Torres, I believe, who is associated with the establishment, the

well-to-do families of the wife of a former president, and a man named Aravalo, who comes

from what is said to be a center left party, Simea, which is a brand new party.

And now this, Reuters, Guatemala and presidential candidate Bernardo Aravalo, called a police

raid on Friday, on his party headquarters, a corrupt, that's in, quote, show of political

persecution, just a month before a high stakes runoff election.

The U.S. and the EU echoed his condemnation.

Joseph, I start with you because this appears to be, right now, law fair.

The claim is that Simea did not register or did not sign up or has not conducted its

affairs in an orthodox fashion to be a new party in Guatemala.

The U.S. State Department and the EU foreign ministry have condemned this action.

It doesn't seem to reverse the court order that earlier canceled the group's legal status.

It appears that, as we've seen in some other countries, when there's someone who's

too popular in the opposition, they find a way to disenfranchise them.

That's the way you read this.

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