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Juan Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who served as the 25th President of Guatemala. He was Minister of National Defense from 1944 to 1950, before he became the second democratically elected President of Guatemala, from 1951 to 1954. He was a major figure in the ten-year Guatemalan Revolution, which represented some of the few years of representative democracy in Guatemalan history. The landmark program of agrarian reform Árbenz enacted as president was very influential across Latin America.
Jorge Ubico Castañeda, nicknamed Number Five or also Central America's Napoleon, was a Guatemalan dictator. A general in the Guatemalan military, he was elected to the presidency in 1931, in an election where he was the only candidate. He continued his predecessors' policies of giving massive concessions to the United Fruit Company and wealthy landowners, as well as supporting their harsh labor practices. Ubico has been described as "one of the most oppressive tyrants Guatemala has ever known" who compared himself to Adolf Hitler. He was removed by a pro-democracy uprising in 1944, which led to the ten-year Guatemalan Revolution.
Julio César Méndez Montenegro was a Guatemalan academic who served as president of Guatemala from July 1966 to July 1970. Mendez was elected on a platform promising democratic reforms and the curtailment of military power. The only civilian to occupy Guatemala's presidency during the long period of military rule between 1954 and 1986. Mendez had assumed the presidency under a pact in July 1966 that gave the armed forces carte blanche with respect to internal security matters and an effective veto over governmental policy. Nevertheless, his election and swearing in was considered a major turning point for the long military-led Guatemala. He was the first cousin of César Montenegro Paniagua whose kidnapping, torture and murder during the Julio César Méndez presidency is rumored to have been undertaken with presidential sanction.
Francisco Javier Arana Castro was a Guatemalan military leader and one of the three members of the revolutionary junta that ruled Guatemala from 20 October 1944 to 15 March 1945 during the early part of the Guatemalan Revolution. A major in the Guatemalan army under the dictator Jorge Ubico, he allied with a progressive faction of the army to topple Ubico's successor Federico Ponce Vaides. He led the three-man junta that oversaw the transition to a democratic government, although he was personally reluctant to allow the elected President Juan José Arévalo to take office in 1945. He served as the Chief of the Armed Forces in the new government until 1949. On 18 July 1949 he was killed in a shootout with supporters of the Arévalo government after he threatened to launch a coup.
Juan Federico Ponce Vaides was the acting President of Guatemala from 4 July 1944 to 20 October 1944. He was overthrown by a popular uprising on 20 October 1944 that began the Guatemalan Revolution.
The Guatemalan Civil War was a civil war in Guatemala fought from 1960 to 1996 between the government of Guatemala and various leftist rebel groups. The government forces have been condemned for committing genocide against the Maya population of Guatemala during the civil war and for widespread human rights violations against civilians. The context of the struggle was based on longstanding issues of unfair land distribution. Wealthy Guatemalans, mainly European-descended, and foreign companies such as the American United Fruit Company had dominated control over much of the land, and paid almost zero taxes in return – leading to conflicts with the rural indigenous poor who worked the land under miserable terms.
General elections were held in Guatemala on 3 March 1974. The ruling Institutional Democratic Party's presidential candidate was General Kjell Eugenio Laugerud García, an army officer whose running mate was Mario Sandoval Alarcón, the long-time leader of the far-right National Liberation Movement. The National Opposition Front's candidate was also an army officer, General Efraín Ríos Montt, whose running mate was economist Alberto Fuentes Mohr. The National Opposition Front was a coalition of the Guatemalan Christian Democracy, Fuentes's Social Democratic Party, and the Authentic Revolutionary Party.
The National Liberation Movement was a Guatemalan political party formed in 1954 by Carlos Castillo Armas. The party served as political platform for the military junta.
The Institutional Democratic Party was a Guatemalan pro-government political party active during the 1970s.
The Revolutionary Party was the ruling Guatemalan political party from 1966 to 1970.
The Revolutionary Action Party was a leftist political party in Guatemala during the ten-year Guatemalan Revolution. Formed in 1945, the party went through a series of mergers and fractures before dissolving in 1954 after the United States-backed coup d'état.
The National Renovation Party was a reformist and progressive political party in Guatemala that was supportive of the government of Jacobo Arbenz. The PRN was founded by a group of the young revolutionaries on 1 July 1944, following the overthrow of dictator Jorge Ubico and the beginning of the Guatemalan Revolution. Its founders included Juan José Orozco Posadas, and Mario Efraín Nájera Farfán. The PRN was known as a “teachers' party”, in contrast to the Popular Liberation Front (FPL), which was seen as a "students' party”. During this period the PRN and the FPL were the largest of the revolutionary parties.
Parliamentary elections were held in Guatemala between 26 and 28 November 1948 in order to elect half the seats in Congress. The National Renovation Party-Revolutionary Action Party alliance won the most seats, but the Popular Liberation Front remained the largest party.
Parliamentary elections were held in Guatemala on 3–5 November 1944 to elect members of the Congress. The result was a victory for the United Front of Political Parties and Civic Associations (FUPP), which won all 76 seats. The FUPP was an alliance of the National Democratic Front, the Popular Liberation Front, the Central Democratic Party, the Social Democratic Party, the National Renovation Party and the National Vanguard Party.
Presidential elections were held in Guatemala between 17 and 19 December 1944. The October Revolution had overthrown Jorge Ubico, the American-backed dictator, after which a junta composed of Francisco Javier Arana, Jacobo Árbenz and Jorge Toriello took power, and quickly announced presidential elections, as well as elections for a constitutional assembly. The subsequent elections were broadly considered free and fair, although only literate men were given the vote. Unlike in similar historical situations, none of the junta members stood for election. The front-runner was the philosophically conservative University professor Juan José Arévalo, of the National Renovation Party. His closest challenger was Adrián Recinos, whose campaign included a number of individuals identified with the Ubico regime. The ballots were tallied on 19 December and Arévalo won in a landslide with 86.25% of the vote, receiving more than four times as many votes as the other candidates combined. The Constitutional Assembly elections took place on 28–30 December, with the United Front of Arevalist Parties winning 50 of the 65 seats.
General elections were held in Guatemala on 5 December 1926. The presidential election resulted in a victory for Lázaro Chacón González, who received 88.6% of the vote. Whilst the elections were rigged, the Progressive Liberal Party did manage to win some seats in the Congress.
United Front of Political Parties and Civic Associations was a political electoral front in Guatemala. The principal partners in the front were the National Democratic Front (FND), Popular Liberation Front (FPL), Central Democratic Party (PDC), Social Democratic Party (PSD), National Renovation Party (PRN) and the National Vanguard Party (PVN). The Front was formed on October 19, 1944. It disbanded after the Legislative elections of 1944.
The Popular Liberation Front was a reformist Guatemalan political party formed in 1944 largely patronized by the middle class and university students. It was a part of the popular movement that overthrew dictator Jorge Ubico and began the Guatemalan Revolution. During this period, it was one of the two largest Guatemalan parties, the other being the National Renovation Party (PRN) led by teachers. In Guatemala's first democratic elections in 1944, it joined a broad coalition of revolutionary parties to support the election bid of Juan José Arévalo, but subsequently distanced itself from his government. In November 1945, it merged with the National Renovation Party to form the Revolutionary Action Party (PAR), but split from it eighteen months later. This split was partially the result of ideological differences, and partially the result of manipulations by Arévalo, who preferred to deal with a fractured opposition. During the period that it was a part of the PAR, as well as in alliance with the PRN, it enjoyed a majority in the Guatemalan Congress for the entire presidential term of Juan José Arévalo, and until 1949, it was the largest of the parties involved in the Guatemalan Revolution.
Anarchism in Guatemala emerged from the country's labor movement in the late 19th century. Anarcho-syndicalism rose to prominence in the early 20th century, reaching its peak during the 1920s, before being suppressed by the right-wing dictatorship of Jorge Ubico.