ABSTRACT

An authoritarian right-wing party that was formed as a vehicle for former President of the Republic Gen. (retd) Efraín Ríos Montt, the FRG was a key participant in the 1990 ‘No Sell-Out Platform’ (Plataforma No Venta-PNV). This electoral grouping was an alliance between the FRG, the Partido Institucional Democrático and the Frente de Unidad Nacional, and was extreme right-wing and populist, standing for strict law and order. Ríos Montt was extremely unpopular, having staged a military coup in 1982, assumed dictatorial powers and fought a vicious counter-insurgency campaign which had alienated many indigenous people. The alliance was deregistered after the 1990 poll on the dubious legal grounds that heads of state who participated in coups are banned from running for the presidency. In 1993 the party again failed to regain legislative approval.