The National Unity of Hope (Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza or UNE) is a political party in Guatemala. It was founded in 2002 and defines itself as a social-democratic and social-Christian party.
At the legislative elections on 9 November 2003, the party won 17.9% of the popular vote and 32 out of 158 seats in Congress. Its presidential candidate Álvaro Colom won 26.4% at the presidential elections on the same day and was defeated in the second round, when he got 45.9%.
For the 2007 elections, the party again chose Colom as its presidential candidate. He came in first place with 28% of the vote; the party won 22.8% of the vote and 48 seats in Congress, more than any other party. On 4 November 2007, in the second round of the election, Colom was elected President of Guatemala.
On the general elections of 2011, the Constitutional Court ruled out the candidacy of Colom's ex-wife, Sandra Torres, thus becoming the first time in the history of the elections that an official ruling party will not present presidential and vice-presidential candidacy.
Famous quotes containing the words national, unity and/or hope:
“The signs look better. The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea. Thanks to the great North-West for it. Nor yet wholly to them.... The job was a great national one.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“From cradle to grave this problem of running order through chaos, direction through space, discipline through freedom, unity through multiplicity, has always been, and must always be, the task of education, as it is the moral of religion, philosophy, science, art, politics and economy; but a boy’s will is his life, and he dies when it is broken, as the colt dies in harness, taking a new nature in becoming tame.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“When we can drain the Ocean into mill-ponds, and bottle up the Force of Gravity, to be sold by retail, in gas jars; then may we hope to comprehend the infinitudes of man’s soul under formulas of Profit and Loss; and rule over this too, as over a patent engine, by checks, and valves, and balances.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)