Guatemalan Republican Front
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The Guatemalan Republican Front (Frente Republicano Guatemalteco) is a political party in Guatemala. It was created in 1989, and formally registered in 1990. They chose founder Efraín Ríos Montt as their presidential candidate, but he was not allowed to stand because of a constitutional ban on former coup leaders such as himself from seeking the presidency. By the time the decision was made to ban him it was too late for the FRG to choose another candidate. They did win 10 seats in the National Congress in those concurrent elections.
In early elections only to the Congress in 1994 the FRG gained 32 seats and became the largest single party in the legislature. In the 1995 presidential election, FRG candidate Alfonso Portillo narrowly lost in the second round, which is a run-off between the two highest placed candidates from the first round ballot. They gained a reduced 21 seats in Congress.
In 1999 Alfonso Portillo won the Presidential election, while the FRG, with 63 seats, had a majority in Congress. Ríos Montt became the President of Congress (speaker), so they became the official party. Paradoxically they gained their strongest support from the same rural communities that had most suffered under the former rule of Ríos Montt between 1982 and 1983.
For the 2003 presidential elections, the FRG again chose Ríos Montt as its presidential candidate. Contradicting legal decisions and judicial wrangling regarding whether or not he would be able to stand resulted in the besiegement of Guatemala City by FRG supporters bussed in from all over the country on 24 July, a day known as Jueves Negro ("Black Thursday"). Days later the ban on Ríos Montt standing was then revoked by the Supreme Court. Some claimed that the FRG rigged this vote by placing a majority of their own party supporters in it, echoing Ríos Montt's claim that the judiciary was rigged against him when the decision did not find in his favor. In spite of a vigorous campaign Ríos Montt only came third in the first round of the election with 19.3%, and the FRG did not retain their majority in Congress. At the legislative elections of the same day, 9 November 2003, the party won 19.7% of the popular vote and 43 out of 158 seats.
