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Guatemala: Ex-dictator’s daughter clear for presidential run

GUATEMALA’S Supreme Court has ruled that the daughter of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt can run for president.

The decision on Wednesday clears the way for Zury Rios Sosa to be selected as presidential candidate for her father’s Christian conservative Vision with Values (Viva) party.

Guatemala’s constitution bans relatives of dictators or coup leaders from contesting presidential elections.

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal had applied the rule to block Ms Rios Sosa’a candidacy on three previous occasions.

But on July 16 she sought a Supreme Court injunction to overturn the tribunal’s latest decision.

Former general Mr Rios Montt played a minor role in the CIA-organised coup d’etat against president Jacob Arbenz in 1954 and briefly came to power in a 1982 putsch.

In 2013, he was convicted of war crimes for his role in Guatemala’s “scorched earth” campaign, which killed hundreds of thousands of indigenous peasants.

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