Zury Ríos Campaigns to Lead Guatemala’s Faltering Democracy
By
Claudia Méndez Arriaza
A controversial past weighs heavily on the conservative’s presidential bid.
GUATEMALA CITY — Zury Ríos was already front-page news in 1990, at the age of just 22. That year, she led a dramatic protest in Congress in support of her father, Efraín Ríos Montt. He had been one of Guatemala’s most brutal dictators, and he was trying to run for president under democracy, even though the new constitution barred from seeking the presidency any leader who, like him, had seized power in a coup. As the delegates who had written the constitution debated his fate, Zury Ríos, her mother and dozens of others disrupted the session for hours. The protesters hung a banner...
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