{"id":1389,"date":"2015-11-10T01:00:38","date_gmt":"2015-11-10T01:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/?p=1389&lang=en"},"modified":"2015-11-12T01:52:34","modified_gmt":"2015-11-12T01:52:34","slug":"luis-grijalva-wins-race-for-mayor-of-xela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/uncategorized\/luis-grijalva-wins-race-for-mayor-of-xela\/","title":{"rendered":"Luis Grijalva wins race for mayor of Xela"},"content":{"rendered":"

Quetzaltenango – 7 September 2015<\/p>\n

By Richard Brown<\/p>\n

Xela\u2019s mayor-elect, Luis Grijalva, appeared in the Central Park this afternoon to thank supporters. Grijalva won a decisive victory, receiving twice the votes of his closest rival. With his party, Encuentro por Guatemala, Grijalva ran a small-budget campaign that, he says, spent only Q50,000 (around $6,500) and was outspent many times over by its rivals. He preferred to hand out flyers and answer questions in markets and public places over holding high-profile, expensive rallies.<\/p>\n

\"Quetzaltecos<\/a>
Quetzaltecos listen to the mayor-elect in Xela’s Central Park. Photo By: Patricia Mac\u00edas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

His easy victory with an alternative, leftist party was one of the big surprises of the 2015 elections. He will replace Rolando Barreintos Pallecer, who won three four-year terms as Xela\u2019s mayor. In the Central Park, Grijalva and party members gave short speeches that highlighted the central pillars of Grijalva\u2019s campaign: transparency and a commitment to broadening public participation in city politics.<\/p>\n

Before Grijalva spoke, a party member challenged voters, asking them to \u201caccompany us with advice, reprimands, and constructive criticism\u201d through the physical and virtual open forums that Encuentro por Guatemala plans to establish using social media platforms like Facebook.<\/p>\n

Grijalva later also challenged the crowd, saying, \u201cDon\u2019t expect that the mayor will arrive and fix everything\u2026 together we\u2019re going to transform Xela.\u201d He said to voters that after the elections \u201cyou have a much bigger responsibility, you must accompany us for the next four years.\u201d He also referred to Encuentro por Guatemala\u2019s unique victory in Xela. He said, \u201cEveryone can read and write, and that\u2019s what made the difference.\u201d He credited the city\u2019s various universities and schools for lifting the public\u2019s consciousness. He said, \u201cThe people of Xela think critically about their vote\u2026 the people of Xela are thoughtful, the people of Xela are intelligent.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also praised the city, its media, and its activists for pressuring for and organizing public debates between candidates and other means of allowing citizens to fairly judge candidates\u2019 platforms. He said to cheers, \u201cIn the United States, in Europe, in many other countries around the world, campaigns are won in debates, in forums, in interviews. And today in Xela that\u2019s how they win\u2026 Xela is showing the whole country that it\u2019s possible to do real, clean politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Grijalva<\/a>
Grijalva thanks voters in Xela’s Central Park. Photo by: Patricia Mac\u00edas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Quetzaltenango – 7 September 2015 By Richard Brown Xela\u2019s mayor-elect, Luis Grijalva, appeared in the Central Park this afternoon to thank supporters. Grijalva won a decisive victory, receiving twice the votes of his closest rival. With his party, Encuentro por Guatemala, Grijalva ran a small-budget campaign that, he says, spent only Q50,000 (around $6,500) and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1396,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[424,427,1,435],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-public-figures","category-uncategorized","category-xela-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1389"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1654,"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389\/revisions\/1654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}