Jorge Serrano Elías

Infobox President | name=Jorge Serrano Elías


order=29th President of Guatemala
term_start=14 January, 1991
term_end=1 June, 1993
predecessor=Vinicio Cerezo
successor=Gustavo Adolfo Espina Salguero
birth_date=26 April 1945
birth_place=Guatemala City
death_date=
death_place=
spouse=
party=Movimiento de Acción Solidaria

Jorge Antonio Serrano Elías was President of Guatemala from 14 January 1991 to 31 May 1993.

Career

Serrano Elías, of Lebanese descent, was born on 26 April 1945 in Guatemala City. After attending school in Switzerland he graduated in industrial engineering from the University of San Carlos, and then attended Stanford University in California, U.S., where he studied economic growth and gained a doctorate in education and science. He then returned to Guatemala to become a civil servant. In 1976 he collaborated with various American Protestant churches to help the population recover from the devastating earthquake that had afflicted the country. He then published a document describing the miserable conditions under which the indigenous population lived, which resulted in his receiving threats. He went into exile in the US, only returning in 1982, to work in the government of fellow evangelical General Efraín Ríos Montt as Vice President of the Advisory Board to the government.

In 1985 he stood as presidential candidate for the "Democratic Party of National Co-operation" (PDCN) and the Revolutionary Party (PR), coming third with 12.6% of the vote. In September 1987 as the political parties representative he became one of the four members of the National Reconciliation Commission (CNR).

President

He became the presidential candidate for the "Solidarity Action Movement" (MAS) in the 1990 presidential elections. He lost the first round on 11 November with 24.1% of the vote, and won the second round against Jorge Carpio Nicolle on 6 January 1991 with 68.1% of the vote. Carpio unsuccessfully tried to use Serrano's fundamentalist beliefs against him as a campaign issue.

On 14 January he replaced Vinicio Cerezo as President of Guatemala. He was the second non- Catholic to gain power in Latin America, after Ríos Montt. The transfer of power marked the first time in decades that an incumbent president had peacefully surrendered power to an elected opposition victor. As his party gained only 18 of 116 seats in Congress, Serrano entered into a tenuous alliance with the Christian Democrats and Carpio's National Union of the Center (UCN).

The Serrano administration's record was mixed. It had some success in consolidating civilian control over the army, replacing a number of senior officers and persuading the military to participate in peace talks with the URNG. He took the politically unpopular step of recognizing the sovereignty of Belize. The Serrano government reversed the economic slide it inherited, reducing inflation and boosting real growth.Fact|date=September 2007

On 25 May 1993, Serrano illegally suspended the constitution, dissolved Congress and the Supreme Court, imposed censorship and tried to restrict civil freedoms, allegedly to fight corruption. The attempted self-coup was similar to the one carried out by Alberto Fujimori. However, Serrano's action met with strong protests by most elements of Guatemalan society, at the forefront of which was the "Siglo Veintiuno" newspaper under the leadership of José Rubén Zamora. This was combined with international pressure, and the army's enforcement of the decisions of the Constitutional Court, which ruled against the attempted takeover. In the face of this pressure, Serrano resigned as president on 1 June and fled the country. He was replaced on an interim basis by his vice president, Gustavo Espina Salguero. However, Espina was involved in the coup as well, and Congress replaced him with Human Rights Ombudsman Ramiro de León Carpio.

Serrano now resides in Panama with his wife Magda Bianchi de Serrano. He has a set of twin sons and a son named Juan Pablo Serrano, as well as two daughters. He has three sisters, one of whom is Olga Stella Serrano de Salazar, who currently resides in Guatemala City with her husband, Rafael Salazar Farfan. Guatemala has made numerous unsuccessful attempts to have him extradited on charges of corruption.

External links

*CIDOB|america_central_y_caribe/guatemala/jorge_serrano_elias