Guatemalan presidential candidate wins by landslide, tells jokes for a living

Comedian Jimmy Morales has been elected President of Guatemala by campaigning on his incompatibility with the post. Morales defeated former first lady Sandra Torres by a more than two-to-one margin despite representing a party that holds seven percent of seats in parliament. Morales is not an unknown face to Guatemalans. He spent almost two decades on a weekly television segment called “Morals,” where the electorate was introduced to his no-holds-barred persona. A self-described populist from a working class background, Morales has won support with his traditional conservative values and government opposition.

The winning campaign ran on the slogan “Ni corrupto, ni ladrón” – neither corrupt, nor a thief. Indeed, the distance Morales put between himself and the Guatemalan elite more than compensated for his lack of political experience. Over the past year the government has been enmeshed in a corruption scandal that saw the current president deposed and arrested.

Morales’s administration will nonetheless have its hurdles. Other than his inexperience, Morales must cope with a parliament of whose fourteen parties his is the smallest. But the president-elect is unfazed; like his idol, Henry Ford has stated, “I don’t know everything, but I know the people to call to find out.”