Guatemala

Hector Montenegro took a break from election campaigning in Guatemala last week - to bury his murdered teenage daughter. Her killers had pulled out her fingernails, tied her hands behind her back, slit her throat, then stuffed the corpse into the boot of a taxi with two other victims of similarly brutal attacks.

The distraught congressional candidate for the leading party was in no doubt that 15-year-old Marta Cristina was the latest victim of a particularly violent election campaign, even by the standards of a country that endured a bloody 36-year civil war.

Forty candidates or senior party officials have already been murdered during the campaign - a grim tally that does not include supporters or relatives such as Mr Montenegro's daughter. With two weeks to go before the September 9 poll, the death toll makes this the bloodiest election in the country's history, as drug lords, crime gangs and political rivals seek to buy power, settle scores and intimidate enemies.



-----Drug traffickers, organized crime, former paramiltary …. Yep, those are usually the folks with highly vested interests in keeping the "left" from winning in Guatemala.

What oligarchy?