By Nicole Dunas

Leadership in Guatemala remains yet uncertain.

The two top candidates in Sunday’s Guatemala presidential and legislative election, Oscar Berger, 57, and Alvaro Cholom, 52, will have a run off race on December 28. Neither candidate won more than 50 percent of the vote, which is required to win the election.

Berger, a conservative businessman representing the Great National Alliance party (GANA) came in with 38 percent. Cholom, a textiles industrialist representing the National Union of Hope party (UNE) won roughly 28 percent.

Berger is said to be popular among wealthy Guatemalans. Cholom, one of a few outsiders qualified as a shaman in Maya spiritual practices according to journalist Tim Weiner, has taken a centrist approach, courting both businessmen and Guatemala’s large indigenous population.

Both candidates indicate a desire to further implement the 1996 peace accords, which ended a thirty-six year civil war.

Ex dictator Efrain Rios Montt came in third with 17 percent of the vote, not enough to qualify him as a candidate for the December run-off race. His party, the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) is currently the ruling party of outgoing president Alfonso Portillo.

Analysts said Guatemalans failed to vote for Montt and the FRG because of his heavy handed dictatorship during the civil war. He was also hurt by allegations of corruption within the FRG during Portillo’s time in office.

Survivors of Guatemala’s civil war and human rights groups blame Montt for the massacre of hundreds of Maya villages during his 1982-1983 period as dictator. These two years are considered the bloodiest of the civil war, in which 200,000 died.

Though Montt has parliamentary immunity as current member of congress until the end of his term in January, sources say that survivors are currently building a case against him for genocide.

According to an Associated Press report by Traci Carl, Rios Montt’s vice-presidential running mate Edin Barrientos said in a radio interview, “The results are clear and we have nothing to dispute them...Everyone knows that to run for office is to put forth your proposals and if they aren’t received, you can’t be sad about it.”

The most phenomenal aspect of the election, said observers, was the defeat of former general Montt. Local analysts claim the defeat of Rios Montt marks the end of his political career.

According to the supreme electoral court, 70 percent of the country’s 5.7 million registered voters turned up to vote. The elections, however, were reported to have irregularities. Several violent incidents occurred, including one fight that killed three people.

Still, foreign observers did not question the results. Other complaints filed with authorities, according to an Inter Press Service report by Jose Eduardo Mora, were the burning of ballot papers by the paramilitary Civil Self-Defense Patrols (EXPACS), a group set up in the 1980’s to fight leftist guerillas.

Problems with registration also kept hundreds from voting.

In the upcoming weeks, both Berger and Cholom, who have similar campaigns, face a struggle to triumph next month.