Guatemalan Christian Democrats
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Guatemalan Christian Democracy
Democracia Cristiana Guatemalteca |
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|---|---|
| Founded | August 24, 1955 |
| Dissolved | August 21, 2008 |
| Ideology | Christian Democracy |
| Colors | green |
Guatemalan Christian Democracy (Spanish: Democracia Cristiana Guatemalteca, DCG) was a political party in Guatemala. A moderate, reformist and anti-Communist party, it was a member of Christian Democrat International.
The party was established on 24 August 1955 by a group of Catholic businessmen. Although initially a right wing-party, it gradually turned leftwards as younger leaders emerged. It won five of the 66 seats in the December 1955 Congressional elections. In the 1957 general elections it nominated Miguel Asturias Quiñóne as its presidential candidate; Asturias finished third out of the three candidates with 11% of the vote. In the 1958 general elections it was part of a multi-party coalition that nominated José Luis Cruz Salazar for the presidency; he finished second, losing the deciding vote in Congress. In the Congressional elections the DCG ran in alliance with the Party of Anticommunist Unification and Republican Party, together winning 20 of the 66 seats. Following the partial elections the following year, the DCG held 11 of the 66 seats. However, it was reduced to four seats in the 1961 elections.
Following the 1963 coup, the DCG did not contest elections again until 1970. During the 1960s it became more radical, although it remained a centrist party. As a result of its growing radicalism, it became a target for right-wing terrorism and a scapegoat for the government during periods of urban violence. In the 1970 elections it nominated Jorge Lucas Caballeros as its presidential candidate. Also gaining the support of the illegal FURD, Lucas finished third in the three-candidate field with 22% of the vote. The party also failed to win a seat in Congress. It was part of the National Opposition Front alliance for the fraudulent 1974 elections. The alliance's presidential candidate José Efraín Ríos Montt finished second with 34% of the vote, whilst the alliance won 14 of the 60 seats in Congress. However, the legality of that election, in which Ríos Montt lost to Kjell Laugerud García, remains a matter of dispute. The 1978 general elections saw the DCG nominate Ricardo Peralta Méndez as its presidential candidate alongside the Authentic Revolutionary Party. Peralta finished third with 26% of the vote, whilst the DCG won seven seats in Congress. By the end of the 1970s it was one of only two legal left-wing parties remaining in Guatemala, and following a string of assassinations against party leaders, the party announced it was closing its offices across the country in June 1980.
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