MEXICO CITY, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- Alvaro Colom, a 57-year-old industrial
engineer and textile businessman, was sworn in on Monday as Guatemala's
president for a 4-year term at a ceremony at the Miguel Angel Asturias National
Theatre in central Guatemala City, according to news reaching here.
During his election campaign, he promised to promote free markets and
reduce inequality focusing on the following areas -- fighting poverty and crime
via social spending, generating jobs via investment promotion, and purging the
police and the courts of corruption.
He has also publicly stated that broad dialogue between political parties
is essential to overcome the nation's social and economic backwardness that has
continued despite the 1996 end of a30-year armed conflict, in which
government-backed paramilitary forces fought guerrillas.
Born in Guatemala City on June 15, 1951, he earned his University of San
Carlos industrial engineering degree in just three years, before starting a
textile business. He also led the nation's export association from 1977 to 1990.
In 1991, he became deputy economy minister and then director of the
National Peace Fund (Fonapaz), which administrated international aid pledged as
part of the process to end the Guatemala's civil war.
Under Colom's leadership, Fonapaz helped repatriate and resettle at least
40,000 Guatemalan refugees who had fled to Mexico to escape Guatemala's
political violence.
Before last year's win, Colom had campaigned for the presidency on two
separate occasions. In 1999, he won third place as the candidate for the
Guatemalan Revolutionary Unity Party, the political wing of the demobilized
guerrillas. In 2003, he came second representing the UNE, a party he founded,
losing to Oscar Berger.
He finally won the presidency on Nov. 4 last year with a narrow lead over
Otto Perez Molina, a former general representing the right win Patriotic Party.
Colom is married to businesswoman Sandra Torres, his second wife. They have
three children. He practices traditional Maya religion.
