Alvaro Colom was to take the oath of office as Guatemala's new president yesterday, promising to crack down on crime and alleviate poverty in one of the poorest and most violent countries in the Americas.
Colom, an engineer turned politician who won Guatemala's presidency in November, has also vowed to help empower the country's ethnic Mayan Indians, telling reporters that he plans "to convert Guatemala into a social-democratic country with a Mayan face."
A good 43 percent of Guatemala's 13 million residents are indigenous Mayas, and they voted overwhelmingly for Colom -- who is one of just three non-Mayas to be a Maya priest and is known as "Sparrow Hawk."
"My government will push equality, cultural diversity and tolerance," Colom, 56, said in an interview on Sunday. "In my Cabinet there will be no racists or male chauvinists. It matters not who governs, but for whom they govern and how this is done."
Colom has already been criticized for naming just one woman and one indigenous person to his 13-member Cabinet, although the key ministries of Interior and Defense remain open.
The new president's center-left proposals have rattled Guatemala's conservative business community. Colom has vowed to end tax breaks for the wealthy, increase the minimum wage, crack down on tax evasion and help strengthen unions.
Colom has also promised to slash poverty levels by 20 percent over his four-year-term by creating 700,000 new jobs, building 200,000 houses and achieving economic growth of at least 6 percent.
Gross domestic product growth is currently at 5 percent. Official figures indicate half the country's 13 million population lives in poverty, though non-governmental organizations put the figure at 80 percent.
Violence had been a key issue in a country where, according to government figures, there are 16 murders a day and five kidnappings a month.
While outgoing President Oscar Berger had a strong pro-US tilt, Colom has said he will strengthen his ties with leftist Latin American governments while maintaining friendly ties with the US.
He cannot turn his back on Washington, as the country's most important source of hard currency are the remittances from the 1.3 million Guatemalans living abroad -- 97 percent of whom live in the US, and 60 percent of whom are undocumented migrants.
Collectively, Guatemalans living abroad sent more than US$4 billion to their homeland last year, according to Central Bank figures.
An industrial engineer by training who has managed dozens of textile companies, Colom served as deputy economy minister in 1991 and later headed an agency that helped people who fought or were displaced in the 1960 to 1996 civil war.
He had made two previous bids for the presidency.
His vice president is Rafael Espada, a prestigious cardiologist who said he will focus on improving the country's ramshackle public health system.
Colom won the presidency in a Nov. 4 runoff vote over retired general Otto Perez Molina. He is the first social democratic president elected since Jacobo Arbenz, toppled in a CIA-organized coup in 1954.
Guatemala is still recovering from a bloody 35-year war with leftist insurgents that ended in a 1996 peace accord.
Guests at yesterday's inauguration were to include Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁); the heir to the Spanish throne, Felipe de Borbon; and the presidents of El Salvador, Brazil, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama -- in all 1,500 personalities from 70 countries.
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