tomorrow 14.01.08 at 14 hours, álvaro colom will officially be guatemala's president. and if all goes well, he will remain so for the next 4 years.

politics are hard to understand. they're not always about reason, nor should they be, but there is one thing i know for sure: information is a key to good governance. i hope this will be a transparent government that will bring progress and solutions to at least some of the most urgent problems that guatemalans face today.

i too, believe in the audacity of hope. it wouldn't be smart nor would it be realistic to compare álvaro colom to barak obama, but they both call to change and hope.

there are a lot of reasons why colom shouldn't be trusted. but then again, that could be said about most politicians. i don't want to make excuses for him or his known or unknown actions, but at the same time, you can't believe everything you hear. there's too much corruption and black campaigning.

i prefer to think that colom and his team will bring good things to this country. i want to believe that the next four years of government will result in progress and development for guatemala. and i also hope that, for the sake of all guatemalans, we will manage develop a more vibrant civil society that will stop waiting for the government to bring solutions to all the problems and start acting by itself, motivating the government to improve its performance at the same time.

to achieve that, guatemala needs a transparent government to provide a healthy environment that allows and calls people to participate, dialogue and cooperate.

i hope this is when it will happen. i would say it's about time...