Military

DATE=11/9/03

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=GUATEMALA MONTT (L-O)

NUMBER=2-309626

BYLINE=CATHERINE ELTON

DATELINE=GUATEMALA CITY

INTERNET=

VOICED AT:

///// MAY BE USED AS AN ALTERNATE WITH CR2-309621. /////

INTRO: Guatemalans are at the polls to elect their next president. The process is being watched closely to see how former dictator Efrain Rios Montt will fare. Catherine Elton has more on this story from Guatemala City.

TEXT: /// AMBIENT SOUND JOURNALISTS, CROWDS ///

Surrounded by a pressing throng of journalists, former General Efrain Rios Montt voted early in an upper-middle class neighborhood of Guatemala City. When asked how he expected the vote to go, he showed his characteristic self assurance.

/// INSERT ACT ONE RIOS MONTT IN SPANISH ///

I am very confident. I am going to win, he says.

Polls place this 77-year-old evangelical preacher and long-time congressional president in third place behind candidates Oscar Berger and Alvaro Colom. But many in Guatemala, including some of General Rios Montt's harshest critics, say they think he could make it to second place.

That would be an important victory. With none of the 11 candidates in the race anywhere near the 50-percent mark in the opinion polls, it is almost certain the top-two vote getters will go on to a run-off in December.

Much controversy has surrounded General Rios Montt's candidacy. A constitutional ban on former dictator's running for president had kept him on the sidelines of two previous elections.

But this year a high court packed with his allies ruled that he could run. He is on the ticket of the Guatemalan Republican Front, the current ruling party.

General Rios Montt ruled Guatemala during one of the darkest chapters of its protracted, decades long civil war, which ended in 1996 with the signing of a peace accord. During General Rios Montt's short dictatorship in the early 1980s, the army massacred tens-of-thousands of Maya Indians in an attempt to quash support for leftist guerrillas.

Carolina de Chinchilla was at the same voting center where Mr. Rios Montt voted this morning, but she did not give him her vote.

/// INSERT ACT TWO IN SPANISH ///

I am convinced that you can not vote for some who committed genocide.

But Mr. Rios Montt's base of support is not in neighborhoods like this one. His strongest support is in the rural areas, where his populist discourse has much resonance among Guatemala's poorest.

Results are expected late in the day. (SIGNED)

NEB/CE/RAE