General elections were held in
Guatemala on 3 March 1974.
[ Dieter Nohlen (2005) ''Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I'', p323 ] The ruling
Institutional Democratic Party
The Institutional Democratic Party ( es, Partido Institucional Democrático, PID) was a Guatemalan pro-government political party active during the 1970s.
The PID was formed in 1963 by Enrique Peralta Azurdia after he had seized power in a coup. ...
's presidential candidate was General
, an army officer whose running mate was
Mario Sandoval Alarcón
Mario Sandoval Alarcón (May 18, 1923 – April 17, 2003) was a Guatemalan politician. Biography
He is the founder in 1960 of the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (MLN) which was a nacionalist anti-communist political party. In 1954, he helpe ...
, 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
José Efraín Ríos Montt (; 16 June 1926 – 1 April 2018) was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who served as ''de facto'' President of Guatemala in 1982–83. His brief tenure as chief executive was one of the bloodiest periods i ...
, whose running mate was economist
Alberto Fuentes Mohr
Alberto Fuentes Mohr (born 22 November 1927 – assassinated 25 January 1979) was a Guatemalan economist and politician, one of the founders of the Social Democratic Party. He also served as Minister of Finance and foreign minister during the 19 ...
. The National Opposition Front was a coalition of the
Guatemalan Christian Democracy
Guatemalan Christian Democracy (, DCG) was a political party in Guatemala. A moderate, reformist and anti-Communist party, it was a member of Centrist Democrat International, Christian Democrat International.Peter Calvert (2004) ''A Political an ...
, Fuentes's Social Democratic Party, and the Authentic Revolutionary Party.
After the National Opposition Front led the first counts on election night, the government stopped releasing further updates and several days later declared that Laugerud had won by about 71,000 votes. According to many independent observers, this result was fraudulent, and Ríos had actually received a clear majority of the votes. Since none of the presidential candidates were reported as having obtaining more than 50% of the popular vote, the election was ultimately decided by the government-controlled
National Congress, which chose Laugerud by a vote of 38 to 2, with 15 opposition deputies abstaining.
Soon after the election, General Ríos was posted as military attaché to Guatemala's embassy in
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...
.
Gen Efraín Ríos Montt obituary
The Guardian, 2 April 2018 The Congressional elections were also won by the alliance of Laugerud's Institutional Democratic Party and Sandoval's National Liberation Movement.
Results
President
Congress
References
Bibliography
*Guía del organismo legislativo República de Guatemala. Preparada por el Instituto Nacional de Administración para el Desarrollo, Dobierno de la República. 1968.
*Villagrán Kramer, Francisco. Biografía política de Guatemala: años de guerra y años de paz. FLACSO-Guatemala, 2004.
*Political handbook of the world 1974. New York, 1975.
{{Guatemalan elections
Elections in Guatemala
1974 in Guatemala
Guatemala
Presidential elections in Guatemala
Election and referendum articles with incomplete results