Secretary-General Nineth Montenegro Political position Centre-left | Founded 2007 (2007) Colors Red and Green | |
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Ideology Ethnic interests of the Indigenous,
Social democracy National affiliation Vision with Values (VIVA) | ||
Encuentro por Guatemala ("EG") – a Spanish name variously translated as "Encounter for Guatemala" (for example, by the BBC and CNN), or as "Together for Guatemala" (Reuters) – is a Guatemalan political party; encuentro may also translate as "gathering", "meeting", or "union".
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Its logo is a red circle with four green dots on its circumference, representing the coming together of the four peoples that make up the Guatemalan nationality: Mayas, Garifunas, Xincas and Ladinos.
2007 election
The party was founded in 2007, in the run-up to that year's 9 September general election. Its presidential candidate was Rigoberta Menchú, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning indigenous activist, running on a ticket with businessman Luis Fernando Montenegro as her vice-presidential hopeful. They secured 3.09% of the popular vote.
In the Congressional election held on the same day, the party fared somewhat better, receiving 6.17% of the popular vote, which was enough to secure them four national-list deputies in Congress for the 2008–12 legislative period: Armando Sánchez Gómez, Rodolfo Aníbal García, Nineth Montenegro and Otilia Lux. Subsequently, only Nineth Montenegro has remained with the party; the other three deputies have left Encounter for Guatemala to operate as independents. Rodolfo Aníbal García has since formed a new political party, the New Republic Movement (Movimiento Nueva República (MNR)). Rigoberta Menchú has gone on to form the Winaq political party. Both MNR and WInaq participated in the 2011 elections as part of the Broad Leftist Front (Frente Amplio de Izquierda).
2011 election
For the 2011 elections, Encuentro formed a political alliance with center-right VIVA, another political party; its presidential and vice-presidential candidates were Harold Caballeros and Efraín Medina, with party leader Nineth Montenegro leading the list of legislative candidates.