No husband and no presidency

It is not a soap opera, but it could have easily been one. On March 7, Guatemalan President Álvaro Colom and his wife, Sandra Torres, quietly decided to file for divorce with a Guatemala City Family Court judge, putting an end to 14 years of life as a couple.

Political observers and opposition figures reacted to the move and described it as a feigned show by the pair to allow Torres to run for president. The country's Constitution bans close relatives of the head-of- state (until the fourth degree of blood relationship and second degree of affinity) to seek the country's top office.

Constitutional experts criticized the decision as "unethical" and "immoral," and politicians, such as Zury Ríos, of the Guatemalan Republican Front, argued that "one can divorce for many reasons, but to do so for the love of power is inconceivable." Colom, asked about the issue, dismissed such claims as "malicious rumors."

Nevertheless, only one month and two days later, freshly divorced Torres presented her candidacy for the presidential elections as nominee for UNE (National Unity of Hope), which is the same political party that holds her former husband in power. Her photograph started to appear on posters and banners on the streets as part of the campaign trail for the September 11 election, but last week Guatemala's Electoral Tribunal decided to put that process on hold, rejecting her candidacy and arguing that "legal fraud" had been committed.

To opt for a marriage of convenience, it is necessary to fake love. Along these lines, to make a divorce of convenience credible, it is necessary to demonstrate lack of love. Álvaro Colom and Sandra Torres evidently failed to meet that requirement. If the divorce date was dubious enough, Torres' quick registration as a candidate soon thereafter made the entire situation look even more suspicious.

And to cap it all, Torres was taken to hospital in June to be operated on for appendicitis, according to the official version. The government's spokesperson said that the president had only telephoned his former wife to ask about her health situation. But Colom, a staunch Catholic, preferred not to lie: yes, he had been next to her as she recovered from her illness.

Finally, last Wednesday, the Electoral Tribunal decided to prohibit her from registering as a candidate, which was considered not only as a major setback for Torres, but also for her former husband and sitting president.

Was this the final chapter of this soap opera? Not at all. Upon receiving the negative news, Torres decided to appeal the decision. On Monday, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal turned it down.

Now, the former first lady can lodge her claim with the Supreme Court of Justice and, if rejected again, she can still try to have the decision reversed at the Constitutional Court. In a country that is not far from becoming the first narco-state in Latin America, as the president himself has claimed, anything can happen. And nothing will be a surprise.