![]() PERALTA: "Curiosity killed the cat," she says. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking Spanish, laughter). And I ask a young woman, why even come here? The people go to the party offices to get their free lunch, a tamale and a Coke. PERALTA: "Thank you for the love you always showed me when I came here with my father, the general Rios Montt." PERALTA: Zury Rios walks on stage to near-silence and almost immediately rubs history in their faces. UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST #1: (Singing in Spanish). ![]() Most are dressed in their Indigenous outfits. Yet the people here don't move closer to the stage. So for 10 minutes, the man on stage cajoles, begs, threatens. PERALTA: Efrain Rios Montt was a military dictator in the '80s, and in 2013, he was convicted of genocide against the Mayan people in these same lands. She's not Indigenous, and her father is infamous. ![]() ![]() But the candidate they're waiting for, Zury Rios, is controversial here. PERALTA: "Otherwise," he says, "our presidential candidate will not come on stage." We're in the mountains of Quiche, smack in the middle of Guatemala's Indigenous heartland. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Spanish).ĮYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: The man on the stage begs people in the park to gather in front of him. Yet in an election with nearly two dozen candidates, not a single one is Indigenous, and Guatemala has never had a Native president. By some estimates, about half the country identifies as Indigenous. Guatemalans will go to the polls this weekend to elect a new president.
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