The preliminary results are now in after the second round of voting in Guatemala's presidential election, and give the presidency to Álvaro Colom of the Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE), or National Unity of Hope, party. During a speech to supporters after learning the result he pledged that "the change starts today" and also made a reference to Bishop Juan Gerardi, saying "plant truth and justice and you will reap reconciliation, as Bishop Gerardi used to say". Colom's rival for the presidency, Otto Pérez Molina is alleged to have been involved in Gerardi's murder in 1998.

The preliminary results give Colom's UNE 52.8% of the vote, against 47.2% for Pérez Molina's Partido Patriota. The turn out was very low, only 48.3% of the almost six million registered to vote, though this still represents an improvement over the years, when, for example, in 1995, the turnout was less than 40%. The Partido Patriota took the capital and Baja Verapaz, but the links that Colom had forged with the countryside carried the vote for him.

This election shows the characteristics of recent Guatemalan elections: low turnout, the winner of the first round winning in the second and, since the return of democracy, the same party never elected for more than one term. In fact, new parties form and old ones disappear - with the same faces moving between them - like hyperactive amoebas. Maybe, Otto Pérez Molina shouldn't be too downhearted though - a look at all the elections since 1995 shows that the second placed candidate in one election has always won in the next one: Alfonso Portillo second in 1995, won 1999, Óscar Berger second in 1999 won in 2003, Álvaro Colom second in 2003, won in 2007.