GUATEMALA CITY, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Guatemalans went to the polls on Sunday to vote in a presidential runoff between former first lady Sandra Torres and doctor-turned-politician Alejandro Giammattei.
Torres, the candidate of the National Unity of Hope (UNE) party, won the first round on June 16 with 25 percent of the votes, trailed by Giammattei, of the Vamos (Let's Go for a Different Guatemala) party, who garnered 14 percent. A total of 19 candidates were initially in the running.
The winner of the runoff will succeed Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, who is barred by law from running for a second term, and will serve from 2019 to 2023.
Some 2,932 voting stations around the country opened at 7 a.m. for Guatemala's 8.1 million registered voters.
According to the president of the Supreme Electoral Court, Julio Solorzano, voting stations were also set up in U.S. cities with high concentration of Guatemalan immigrants, such as Los Angeles, Houston, New York and Maryland.
The head of an election observer mission from the Organization of American States (OAS), Costa Rica's ex-president Luis Guillermo Solis, told Xinhua he hoped the runoff takes place with fewer irregularities than the first round.
This is Torres' second run for the presidency -- she lost to Morales in 2015 -- and Giammattei's fourth run for presidency.
