Hard-liner to fight leftist in Guatemala runoff

GUATEMALA CITY, Sep 10 (Reuters) A Guatemalan former general will face a center-left businessman in a presidential election runoff in November after a close first-round vote, results showed today.

Alvaro Colom narrowly led ex-Gen. Otto Perez Molina with votes from 65 percent of polling stations counted. None of the candidates earned more than half the votes in Sunday's election, so a second round of voting will be held on Nov 4.

Colom won 27 per cent compared to 25 per cent for Perez Molina, who promises to use the army against rampant crime.

Guatemala, a crossroads for Colombian cocaine on its way to the United States, has one of the highest homicide rates in the world, with almost 6,000 people killed in the country of 13 million last year.

Supporters shouting ''Otto, Otto,'' set off fireworks at his Patriotic Party headquarters and punched the air as early results showed Perez Molina leading. But celebrations were premature as the soft-spoken Colom overtook the military man.

Colom promises to fight poverty if elected. His National Unity for Hope party has struggled to rid its ranks of drug gangs and organized crime groups.

The silver-haired Perez Molina, 56, vows a ''strong fist'' against crime and corruption. Critics fear a return to heavy-handed rule if the former head of army intelligence wins power.

He promises to send soldiers to patrol the streets and to declare states of emergency in areas overrun by drug traffickers and tattooed street gang members known as ''mareros,'' who have beheaded rivals and shot children.

''Obviously, the issue of crime is what interests Guatemalans and they see Otto Perez Molina as the person capable of solving that problem,'' said the rightist's campaign manager, Alejandro Sinibaldi.

Some opinion polls have given Perez Molina a good chance of winning a second round, but much will depend on his ability to pick up votes that went to Sunday's third-placed candidate, Alejandro Giammattei.

MILITARY HISTORY After a US-backed coup overthrew the democratically elected government of President Jacobo Arbenz in 1954, the military ruled Guatemala almost without interruption until 1986.

Perez Molina commanded troops in the El Quiche department in the 1980s, when many Mayan Indian civilians were massacred in the country's civil war, but he has not been prosecuted for any atrocities.

The former soldier says he is a political moderate and points to his role as a peace negotiator in talks that ended the civil war against leftist rebels under a 1996 peace deal.

But he still divides Guatemalans. Daniel and Angelika Perez, a married couple for 50 years, disagreed about him.

''I am going to vote for Perez Molina because there is a lot of crime and he's a military man and is trained to give us security,'' said Angelika, 71, a retired teacher.

''Trained to kill people,'' interrupted Daniel, 73, a retired civil servant who supported Colom.

The election campaign was tainted by the worst political violence since the end of the civil war in 1996, with drug gangs and political rivals killing 50 people in the campaign.

But balloting was peaceful. Only minor scuffles were reported as Guatemalans voted in jungles dotted with Mayan pyramids, in towns nestled under volcanoes and in the bustling capital.

A UN-backed report blamed the army for 85 per cent of the war-era killings. Many of the victims were civilian Mayan peasants slaughtered in their mountain villages on suspicion of sympathizing with the guerrillas.

The country is awash with guns left over from the war era and street violence is commonplace. An inept justice system leaves most crimes unsolved.

Nobel peace laureate Rigoberta Menchu, a defender of Mayan Indian rights, was in sixth place in the election on 3 per cent of the vote. She had wrapped up her electoral campaign early, complaining of a lack of money.

REUTERS JT BD1430