Álvaro Enrique Arzú Irigoyen, born March 14, 1946 in Guatemala City, was President of Guatemala from January 14, 1996 until January 14, 2000. He became Mayor of Guatemala City for the third time in January 2004.

Career

Born into a family that is part of the small European elite that dominate Guatemala, he graduated in Social and legal sciences from Rafael Landívar University. In 1978 he became the Director of the Guatemalan Tourist Institute (INGUAT) until in 1981 he was elected Mayor of Guatemala City for the Guatemalan Christian Democrats (DCG) party. When in March 1982 General Efraín Ríos Montt took power in a coup he anulled the election results. The government offered him another job working for the municipality (of Guatemala City), but he refused it. In 1986 he became Mayor under the umbrella of the Civic Committee Plan for National Advancement in an national elections that saw the DGC sweep to power, with Marco Vinicio Cerezo Arévalo becoming President.

In 1989 the Civic Committe Plan became a formal political party called the National Advancement Party (PAN), and in 1990 he was their presidential candidate, coming in 4th place with 17.3% of the vote. The winner, Jorge Serrano Elías, made Arzú his foreign minister, but he then resigned on September 21 in protest against Serrano's decision to normalize relations with Belize, over most of whose territory Guatemala has long standing claims. On October 13 he became PAN's Secretary General, a position from which he resigned on June 25th 1995 in order to concentrate on being PAN's candidate in the November presidential elections.

President

He won the first round in November, and then narrowly beat Alfonso Portillo of the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) in the second round in January 1996, gaining 51.2% of the vote. PAN gained a slim majority with 43 out of 80 of the National Congress seats. The main achievement of his presidency was to sign an agreement with the guerrilla group the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity, that ended Guatemala's 36 year civil war. His promise to do this had been a pivotal part of his electoral campaign. There had been 6 years of negotiations since the Oslo Agreement of March 1990, and Arzú gave them a vital new impulse when he personally met the URNG in Mexico on February 26, 1996. A ceasefire followed on March 20. Various peace agreements were signed as the year progressed until in December when a number of agreements were signed in Oslo. On December 12 an accord legalizing the URNG was signed in Madrid. On December 18 Congress passed a law giving a partial amnesty to the combatants, before the final accord for a firm and lasting peace was signed on December 29.

On April 26 1998 the assistant Archbishop to Guatemala City Juan José Gerardi Conedera was murdered, 2 days after publishing a report on the suspected involvement of the military in past atrocities. Arzú declared 3 days of national mourning, and said it was a common and not a political crime. With suspicions that the President's own guard had been behind the murder, and amidst mounting national and international pressure, he formed a commission with his most trusted collaborators, and members of the church, to fully investigate the crime.

On October 16 Congress passed a law describing Guatemala as a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-lingual society. Yet in a referendum the following May the population (or that 18.6% that voted) rejected this proposition, which represented a blow for the government.

Arzú has three children from his first wife, Sylvia García Granados: Roberto, Diego and María. He has two children from his second wife, Patricia, to whom he is still married. He has six grandchildren. He was re-elected Mayor of Guatemala City in November 2003. His nephew, Enrique García Granados, is vice-Mayor.

External link

Biography in Spanish (http://www.cidob.org/bios/castellano/lideres/a-051.htm)