THE leading candidiate in Guatemala’s presidential election has links to an alleged war criminal, the country’s media has revealed.

With almost 80 per cent of polling stations having reported, National Convergence Front candidate Jimmy Morales (below) was leading the field of 14 candidates yesterday with 26 per cent of the vote.

Renewed Democratic Liberty (Lider) party candidate Manual Baldizon polled 18.5 per cent, closely followed by Sandra Torres of the National Unity of Hope with 17.7 per cent.

Zury Rios, the daughter of former military dictator and war criminal Efrain Rios Montt, trailed with just 6 per cent.

Turnout was nearly 80 per cent, although about 8.5 per cent of the ballots were blank or spoiled.

“The people are showing that they do not want a group like that for the future,” Mr Morales said, referring to Lider.

With no-one gaining an absolute majority, the top two candidates will face a run-off election on October 25.

Comedian and TV personality Mr Morales is an apparent political newcomer running on an anti-corruption platform, amid a corruption scandal that has seen President Otto Perez Molina and his deputy Roxana Balbetti resign.

But Guatemalan media outlet Nomada revealed that his candidacy was sponsored by Edgar Justino Ovalle, a former general during Guatemala’s genocidal civil war in the 1980s.

Declassified documents from the US government’s National Security Archive (NSA) show that Mr Ovalle commanded a special army unit in the Quiche region.

In just one year, from 1981 to 1982, the military perpetrated 77 massacres in Quiche.

The NSA documents show that Mr Ovalle commanded the Military Zone 21 base in Coban, a military intelligence and command centre and the site of mass graves of genocide victims.

When questioned by Nomada about his command of the unit, Mr Ovalle claimed: “I have never heard of it. I was never there.”

“Maybe you should ask the United States, because I have no idea,” he added.

A UN-backed truth commission found that 200,000 people were killed and tens of thousands tortured or disappeared in the 36-year civil war from 1960 to 1996.