Politics | World

New president of Guatemala made jokes about indigenous people

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Jimmy Morales on the campaign trail. Photo from Facebook

Indigenous leaders and activists in Guatemala aren't happy with their incoming president, a former comedian known for putting racial stereotypes on screen.

Jimmy Morales, 46, won election by a landslide on Sunday, following the arrests of former president Perez Molina and former vice president Roxana Baldetti. He promised to address government corruption but it's his past that's troublesome in a country where indigenous people represent about 40 percent of the population.

“Jimmy Morales has made a lasting contribution to prejudice and the image of the inferiority of Indians,” Amílcar Pop, a Congressman who is Maya, told the Associated Press.

Andrea Ixchíu, a human rights activist, agreed with that assessment. The Maya leader called Morales a "racist."

"In his TV shows, as a comedian, he always makes fun of indigenous people, our customs and the way we speak," Ixchíu told Public Radio International. "So I personally don't like him."

Indigenous people were the victims of massacres and were targeted for violence during the country's long and bloody civil war. But Morales, who once appeared in blackface in a television skit, denied that genocide occurred against the Maya people, The Tico Times reported in June.

Get the Story:
TV comic Jimmy Morales wins Guatemala presidential runoff (AP 10/26)
Guatemalans just elected as president a comedian who makes fun of poor people (PRI 10/26)
Jimmy Morales used to do blackface comedy. He’s now poised to be Guatemala’s president. (The Washington Post 9/19)