Álvaro Colom

Colom was born in Guatemala City on 15 June 1951 to Antonio Colom Argueta and Yolanda Caballeros Ferraté; he was the fourth of five siblings.[1] [2] His uncle, Manuel Colom, was mayor of Guatemala City between 1970 and 1974 and was killed by the military in 1979.[3][2]

He attended primary and high school at the private Catholic educational institution of Liceo Guatemala and later revealed that he considered entering a seminary.[1] Colom began his career in industrial engineering at the Universidad de San Carlos (USAC), graduating in 1974 and taught in the Faculty of Engineering between 1975 and 1977.[1]

Colom then became a businessman involved in a variety of businesses, especially in the textile sector. Following the devastating earthquake of 1976, Colom launched hundreds of small businesses in the affected rural areas, an action that was praised by the population.[1][4] In 1977 Colom became a member of the Chamber of Industry of Guatemala, assuming the leadership of the Apparel and Textile Commission, and of the Advisory Council of the Trade Association of Exporters of Non-Traditional Products (AGEXPRONT).[1] Five years later, in 1982, he was appointed member of the Board of Directors of AGEXPRONT, of which he was elected Vice President in 1990.[1]

With the recovery of democracy in 1986, Colom expanded his business, achieving a notoriety that allowed him to approach political circles.[1] During this period he founded the business of Roprisma, Intraexsa and Grupo Mega.[1]

On 6 May 2007, Colom was proclaimed a presidential candidate by the UNE National Assembly and selected José Rafael Espada as the vice-presidential candidate to face Otto Pérez Molina. The polls were favorable and the UNE was, at the time, the party with the most militants in the country.[1] Among the measures of his electoral program, they highlighted the commitment to reduce the number of deputies to 60 or 75, not to raise taxes, to fight against tax evasion, to strengthen the power of the municipalities, to restructure the Army in accordance with the peace agreements, to convene a fiscal pact, to promote a program of infant and primary education, to build 200,000 public housing units, and to reduce the rate of crime in the country with "intelligence".[5][6] The electoral campaign was rocked by the worst episode of political violence in Guatemala's history with at least 50 people killed.[7]

Colom with Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, 9 November 2007

He was one of the two candidates to reach the second round of the 2007 presidential election on 9 September 2007, along with Partido Patriota candidate Otto Pérez Molina, after winning 27% of the votes.[8] The second round took place on 4 November with low turnout.[9] At 10:00 p.m. local time on election night, Colom was declared the newly elected president by over five percentage points, 52.7% to 47.3%, with over 96% of polling places counted.[10] He became the first leftist president to be elected in recent Guatemalan history.[11]

Inauguration of Álvaro Colom, 14 January 2008

Colom's first message called for negotiations so that the government would be of "national conciliation".[1] Colom was sworn in on 14 January 2008.[12] On 12 February of that year, the Congress of the Republic approved the presidential power to pardon death row inmates, recovering the death penalty that had been suspended a few years earlier. Colom vetoed this law in March asserting that this penalty meant "condemning us to another greater death penalty".[13] But Colom stated that he would not pardon those sentenced to death out of respect for the country's laws, although the option to do so was granted in 2008.[14]

On 4 September 2008 Colom ordered the Army to control the National Palace and the National Palace of Culture after finding seven recording devices and two hidden cameras in his private office.[15][16] On 22 September of that year he named Marlene Raquel Blanco Lapola as the first woman director of the Policía Nacional Civil.[17] On 22 December 2008, Colom dismissed Minister of Defence Marco Tulio García Franco and the entire military leadership in a reshuffle motivated by his intention to modernize the Army and to strengthen and harmonize the relations between the government and the Armed Forces.[18]

The death on 10 May 2009 of lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano put Colom's presidency in check. Rosenberg had made a video public days before in which he warned that if he appeared dead, it was the responsibility of Colom and the first lady Sandra Torres. The lawyer began investigating the murders of businessman Khalil Musa and his daughter Marjorie and concluded that he could have been killed because he could uncover a corruption case involving Colom and other authorities.[19]

Protesters erupted in Guatemala City and opponents urged president Colom to step down from office.[20][21] President Colom appeared on national television to reject Rosenberg's accusations and called for both the United Nations and the FBI to investigate.[22] Colom also assured the public that he was not going to resign.[23] In an interview with CNN Español, Colom asserted the Rosenberg video was "completely fake",[24] thus challenging early reports from the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), which validated its authenticity.[25] The International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala ruled in January 2010 that Rosenberg planned his death with the intention of bringing about profound change in Guatemala, thus failing to prove any involvement of Colom.[26][27]

Amid a food crisis that caused the death of at least 25 children and affected 54,000 families, Colom declared the state of public calamity on 8 September 2009 in order to address the crisis with government and international aid.[28]

President Colom with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington D.C., February 2010.

After the eruption on 29 May 2010 of the Pacaya volcano, which caused two deaths, Colom declared a state of emergency around the volcano. The emergency was extended on 30 May to the whole territory after the passage of the devastating tropical storm Agatha the day before.[29][30]

In 2010 he appointed Helen Mack Chang, a noted human rights activist, to investigate police corruption and make recommendations for changes. She noted that their low pay and poor working conditions made them open to influence and needed to be addressed.[31]

As president, Colom expanded social programs[32] and access to health, education, and social security. These contributed to a rise in the living standards of the Guatemalan poor.[33][34][35] He also tackled the growing influence of Mexican drug cartels, especially the Zetas, and, working with the attorney general through the anti-corruption commission, succeeded in arresting some of the country's most violent criminals.[35]

He also highlighted his government's gestures towards Indigenous peoples. He was considered one of the few white politicians "allied" with the Mayans and used the Mayan calendar daily, raising the flag representing the Guatemalan indigenous peoples over the National Palace.[35]

His presidency ended on 14 January 2012, with the inauguration of Otto Pérez Molina after his victory in the 2011 presidential election and Colom's ineligibility for reelection.[36] Colom left the presidency with a 95.83% disapproval rating of his administration.[37]

On 20 January 2012, Colom became member of the Central American Parliament, an office he held until 2016.[38]

Colom headed the observation mission of the Organization of American States to the Colombian peace agreement referendum of 2016.[39]

The U.S. government included Álvaro Colom on 1 July 2021 on the Engel List, which would allow the U.S. Congress to sanction him.[40]

On 2 March 2004, after months of accusations, Colom was formally charged by the Prosecutor's Office with the crime of money laundering in relation to the case of the "looting" of the Comptroller General of Accounts.[1] On 11 March, he acknowledged before the Prosecutor's Office having been financed with the amounts identified by the NGO Amigos en Acción, but denied having any responsibility for the embezzlement of public funds.[1]

On 9 August 2005, the Tenth Criminal Court of First Instance exonerated him of the money laundering charge, but indicted him for the charge of improper concealment and imposed a bail of 50,000 quetzals, which he later deposited, to avoid pre-trial detention.[1] He appealed to the First Chamber of the Criminal Court of Appeals, which ruled in his favor on 13 September with the revocation of the indictment for the crime of concealment.[1] On 17 February 2006, Colom requested the Court to dismiss the case for money laundering, but on 6 March 2006, the magistrate in charge of the case rejected it.[1] Colom then lashed out against the "political persecution" of which he was a victim.[1]

On 30 October 2015, the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources filed a criminal complaint against Colom before the Attorney General's Office and other members of his government for signing the extension of the oil contract with Perenco.[41]

Colom in 2010

Colom's first wife, Patricia Szarata, died in 1977 after a car accident. With Patricia, he had two children: Antonio Colom Szarata, the bass player of a Guatemalan pop rock band "Viento en Contra", and Patricia.[1][35][49] His second marriage was to Karen Steele, with whom Colom had his son Diego, but that marriage ended in divorce.[1][35] In June 2002 he married Sandra Torres, also divorced and a mother of four, whom he met during the 1999 election campaign. Torres served as first lady during Colom's presidency until 2011, when the couple divorced so that Torres could run for the 2011 presidential election, as the Constitution prohibits relatives of presidents from running for the same office.[1][35] The divorce was authorized by a court on 8 April of that year.[50] Even so, in August 2011 the Constitutional Court rejected Torres' registration as a presidential candidate.[51]

Colom's personality was defined by his pragmatism and conciliatory nature, although not particularly firm in leadership, an aspect that was criticized and often considered, by his critics, to be hesitant and subject to the energetic character of his wife Sandra Torres.[1] After a fractured palate contracted in a fall as a child, he had trouble pronouncing the letter r.[1] Colom rejected abortion, homosexual marriage and drug use.[1]

• Order of Brilliant Jade with Grand Cordon (Republic of China, 2008)[57]
• Collar of the Order of the Aztec Eagle (Mexico, 2011)[58]