New Guatemalan President Alejandro Maldonado gestures during his swearing in ceremony in Guatemala City Sept. 3, 2015. Alejandro Maldonado was sworn in as Guatemala's new president on Thursday. (Xinhua/Str)
GUATEMALA CITY, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- Controversial right-wing politician Alejandro Maldonado Aguirre was named new president of Guatemala Thursday, following the resignation of Otto Perez Molina, who was arrested on corruption charges.
Maldonado was sworn in by Congress President Luis Rabbe to stand in until the current presidential term ends on Jan. 14, 2016. He will then hand over the office to whoever wins this Sunday's presidential elections.
Born on Jan. 6, 1936, Maldonado is a lawyer by training who most recently served as a judge on the constitutional court, where he made several controversial decisions.
He was chosen to serve as vice president in mid-May, after Perez Molina's vice president Roxana Baldetti was forced to step down amid allegations of corruption linked to the same scheme that brought down the president.
A decades-long member of the ultraconservative National Liberation Movement (MLN), a political party with close ties to the military, Maldonado served as education minister under the military government of Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio until 1974.
Maldonado graduated with a law degree from the state University of San Carlos, and went on to hold several political and diplomatic posts, including ambassador to the United Nations from 1974 to 1976, to Switzerland from 1978 to 1980, and to Mexico in the 1990s.
