Sandra Julieta Torres Casanova is a Guatemalan politician who was First Lady of Guatemala from 2008 to 2011 and unsuccessful candidate for president in 2015 and 2019.
She has spent most of her professional lifetime promoting politics, plans, programs, projects and laws concerning social development, specially of women, children and people with special needs. Within the legal initiatives that she has promoted from inside her political party – the National Unity of Hope – are:
Initiative of Law Against Feminicide. Approved in the first semester of 2008.
Initiative of Law of Responsible Parenting. Approved in August 2008.
Sandra Torres de Colom was founder of the Coordinadora Nacional de la Mujer for the political party Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza, through which more than 30,000 Guatemalan women have channeled their specific demands. The action in favor of women was reflected within the corporate area. Sandra Torres, as a businessperson, worked at private companies and had been responsible for textile production and administration of clothing factories. She also was president of Consejo de Cohesión Social, an institute in charge of orienting social investment for the eradication of extreme poverty and combating poverty in general. The group employs programs and projects focused on improving the coverage and quality of education, healthcare, infrastructure, sustainability and national reconstruction.
Presidential candidate
During the 2008 presidential term of her husband Álvaro Colom, she had a proactive role in many social programs, creating a platform for the distribution of government aid to the poor. She became quite popular among the poor and hence she decided to run for president in the 2011 Guatemalan general election. However, she was disqualified from being a candidate since the Constitution of Guatemala, in subsection c of article 186, prohibits relatives of the President and the Vice President on duty, to run as candidates. Even though she divorced her husband President Álvaro Colom, the move was seen as an attempt to circumvent the electoral law. With no restrictions from the Constitution she was able to run in the Presidential election of 2015 as a candidate for the same political party that her ex-husband was elected, the social-democratic National Unity of Hope party. This time she finished second in the first round of the election on 6 September, narrowly beating the third-placed Manuel Baldizón, and qualifying for the runoff against first-placed Jimmy Morales. She lost the election in the second round. She ran again in the 2019 Presidential election, and led in some polls, though she had faced a legal challenge by the Constitutional Court over potential campaign finance violations. during the last election, which she denied. Torres ran for the social-democratic National Unity of Hope party. Torres says she would provide "comprehensive solutions like development, fight against poverty and job opportunities" to try to convince Guatemalans to stay in the country rather than migrating to the United States. Torres pledged health and education reforms as well as jobs to stem the flow of migration to the US. In an appeal to more conservative voters, she vowed to oppose abortion and same-sex marriage. She did not attend either the first round or second round debates, despite having been invited to both. She was defeated in the second round of the 2019 Presidential election by Alejandro Giammattei.
Arrest
On September 2, 2019, she was arrested at her home on charges of violating campaign finance rules.
