Sat, Jun 24, 2023 page3

• Guatemalan hopefuls vow to keep ties

  SUNDAY ELECTION: Candidate Sandra Torres said that, if elected, she would boost diplomatic and commercial ties, and consider creating a special economic zone

  • By Liu Tzu-hsuan / Staff reporter, with CNA
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  The two leading candidates in Guatemala’s presidential election vowed to maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan, Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported on Thursday.

  The presidential election in the Central American is to be held tomorrow.

  After Santiago Pena won the Paraguayan presidential election in April, the domino effect of China poaching Taiwan’s allies in Central and South America might be coming to a stop, especially if Guatemala also elects a candidate who values ties with Taiwan, the Nikkei reported.

  

  Supporters of Valor leader Zury Rios, a candidate in Sunday’s Guatemalan presidential election, attend a campaign event in Guatemala City on Thursday.

  Photo: AFP

  Beijing has lured away Nicaragua and Honduras with economic incentives in 2021 and this year respectively, it said.

  Former Guatemalan first lady Sandra Torres, the National Unity of Hope’s candidate, was leading in the polls with 23 percent support, followed by Cabal leader Edmond Mulet (21 percent) and Valor leader Zury Rios (19 percent), a CID-Gallup Poll released last month showed.

  Torres told the Nikkei that, if elected, she would bolster diplomatic and commercial ties with Taiwan, and consider establishing a special economic zone with preferential tax to attract Taiwanese companies to invest in Guatemala.

  Mulet said that Guatemala would maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan if he is elected, adding that he would not undermine his country’s friendly ties with the US, which has been wary of China’s expanding influence in Central and South America.

  “Relations with Taiwan are important to our diplomacy with the United States,” he said in a separate Nikkei report published yesterday. “We will continue diplomatic and commercial ties with Taiwan. There is no reason to sever ties.”

  Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei in 2021 said that China had demanded his country sever ties with Taiwan, which he refused to do.

  Mulet told the Nikkei that he was not approached by China.

  Rios did not say whether she would maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan if elected, only that she valued Taiwan, the newspaper reported on Thursday.

  If no candidate obtains more than half of the votes tomorrow, the two candidates with the most votes would enter a second round of voting on Aug. 20.

  In other news, former Japanese minister of foreign affairs Seiji Maehara is to lead a delegation of 12 Japanese lawmakers to Taiwan from July 2 to 4, Japan’s Sankei Shimbun reported.

  Maehara, who is a deputy leader of the Democratic Party for the People, former Japanese deputy minister of defense Shu Watanabe of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and Japan Innovation Party Secretary-General Fumitake Fujita announced the trip on Thursday, the newspaper reported.

  This is the first time a delegation comprising lawmakers from three opposition political parties has planned a visit to Taiwan, it said.

  “Taiwan is an important friend of Japan that shares values such as freedom, democracy, basic human rights and the rule of law,” Maehara said.

  The trip is to demonstrate how much Japan’s opposition parties support Taiwan, he said.

  The delegation plans to meet with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Vice President William Lai (賴清德) and former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), the Sankei Shimbun reported.

  It is also to attend a banquet held by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), it said.
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