The party originated from a split experienced by the National Advancement Party in 2000 after Álvaro Arzú lost his standing in the party, prompting him to establish the Unionist Party with old companions and functionaries during his time as president.[14]
At the legislativeelections, 9 November 2003, the party won 6.2% of the popular vote and 7 out of 158 seats. Its presidential candidate Fritz García Gallont won 3.0% at the presidential elections of the same day.
In the run-up to the elections in 2007, the party nominated Rudy Vinicio Pozuelos Alegría, who was investigated for his role in the murder of bishop Juan José Gerardi Conedera on 26 April 1998 in his function as the former head of the Presidential General Staff, for a seat in the congressional delegation from the Chimaltenango Department.[15][16]
Classic logo used between 2002 until 2010
At the 2007 elections, the party again chose García Gallont as its presidential candidate. He won about 2.9% of the vote. The party won 6.2% of the national vote and 6 seats in the congressional elections.
The party was reduced to 2.7% of the nationwide vote at the elections in 2011, thereby retaining a single legislator in Congress. Their presidential candidate was Patricia Escobar, who won close to 2.2% of the electorate.
For the elections in 2015 the party entered into an alliance with Commitment, Renewal and Order. The unified list was able to garner approximately 5.7% of the vote in the congressional elections, increasing their share of seats to 5. The alliance nominated Roberto González Díaz-Durán as their presidential candidate, who gained about 3.5% in the elections.
In January 2018, in return for their support of president Jimmy Morales, General Secretay Álvaro Arzú Escobar was elected as President of the Congress.[17]
In June 2019, the leading prosecutor of the Special Prosecutor's Office against Impunity (FECI) Juan Francisco Sandoval brought charges of embezzlement and fraud against the mayor of Guatemala City, Ricardo Quiñónez Lemus.[19] The proceedings had to be stopped in January 2021, after the CSJ determined that the prosecutorial immunity of the mayor can not be revoked.[19] In the same month, Héctor Cifuentes was also arrested for illegal party financing, but after changes to the law in 2022, charges were dropped in October 2022 and he was released.[20][21] The party was one of nine parties that rejected a four-point minimum compromise on human rights, initiated by the Human Rights Ombudsman and the Guatemalan office of the OHCHR.[22]
The party contested the elections in 2019 on their own again and achieved 2.9% of the national vote in the legislative elections, thereby electing 3 legislators to Congress. The party contested the presidential elections with Pablo Duarte and Roberto Villeda as their ticket, falling to 1.4% of the vote.
After the election, the party was generally seen as an ally of the government faction.[23] In October 2019, the party supported the impeachment of the Ombudsman for Human Rights, Jordán Rodas, for his alleged inaction in five different cases, in Congress.[24] The motion failed to reach the required quorum.
On 5 August 2022, the party announced they would enter into a political alliance with Valor to contest the upcoming election in 2023 together.[25] The agreement was officialised at the national convention of the party on 11 December 2022, where the slate of candidates for Congress and the presidential candidate duo were proclaimed.[26] The alliance nominated Zury Ríos and Héctor Cifuentes as presidential and vice-presidential candidate, respectively.
Ideology
The party's reduced popular support has not allowed it to achieve a significant number of public positions, preventing it from consolidating a defined ideology. However, due to the origins of its leaders in other political movements, it can be classified as a right-wing party on the classic political spectrum. It is a notably nationalist movement, socially conservative but at the same time promoting a free market economy.
Álvaro Enrique Arzú Irigoyen was a Guatemalan politician and businessman who served as the 44th president of Guatemala from 14 January 1996 to 14 January 2000. He was elected Mayor of Guatemala City on six occasions: in 1982, when he declined to take office because of a coup d'état; in 1986; in 2003, after serving as president; in 2007; in 2011 and 2015, for a term that would see him die in office.
The Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity is a Guatemalan political party that started as a guerrilla movement but laid down its arms in 1996 and became a legal political party in 1998 after the peace process which ended the Guatemalan Civil War.
Óscar José Rafael Berger Perdomo is a Guatemalan businessman and politician who served as the 46th president of Guatemala from 2004 to 2008. He previously served as mayor of Guatemala City from 1991 to 1999.
The National Advancement Party was a conservative political party in Guatemala. It was founded in 1989.
Podemos, previously the Movimiento Reformador was a conservative political party in Guatemala. It was led by Roberto Arzú.
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The National Change Union, sometimes translated as the Union of National Change, was a national liberal political party in Guatemala.
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The La Línea corruption case began in Guatemala on April 16, 2015 when the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala and State prosecutors accused a number of politicians in the administration of President Otto Pérez Molina of setting up a customs corruption ring with the help of high-ranking officials in the tax and customs administration. Several demonstrations ensued, calling for the resignation of Pérez Molina and his vice-president Roxana Baldetti. Among the accused were the retired captain Juan Carlos Monzón, and the directors of the Tax Administration Superintendency or Superintendencia de Administración Tributaria, (SAT), an entity analogous to the US Internal Revenue Service. Baldetti resigned in early May to the joy of thousands of demonstrators.
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Valor is a conservative and right-wing populist political party in Guatemala.
General elections were held in Guatemala on 25 June 2023 to elect the president and vice president, all 160 seats in Congress, all 20 members of the Central American Parliament, and mayors and councils for all the country's 340 municipalities. Incumbent president Alejandro Giammattei was constitutionally prohibited from running for a second four-year term. However, as no presidential candidate obtained over 50 percent of the vote in the first round on 25 June 2023, a second round was held between the top two finishers on 20 August 2023: Congressman Bernardo Arévalo of the Movimiento Semilla and Sandra Torres, a former first lady representing the National Unity of Hope (UNE) party. Arévalo defeated Torres in the second round with nearly 61 percent of the vote in what was seen as a landslide. The ruling Vamos party won the largest number of seats in Congress.
The 2023 Guatemala City mayoral election was held on 25 June 2023, to elect the mayor of Guatemala City, Department of Guatemala and thirteen members of the Municipal Council. Incumbent Ricardo Quiñónez Lemus was eligible for another term. Quiñónez of the Unionist Party ran for re-election with the support of Valor.
Cabal is a political party in Guatemala led by Edmond Mulet. In English, the party's name can be translated literally as "thorough", or colloquially as "exact" or "spot on".
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