News In Brief

Final results announced in Guatemala election

Final election results here show seats in the new Constituent Assembly were split between moderates and the extreme right. The voter turnout broke all previous records, with more than 1.8 million Guatemalans going to the polls on July 1.

Electoral officials announced Friday the National Centrist Movement and the moderate Christian Democratic Party both captured 22 seats each in the 88-seat assembly. An extreme rightist coalition comprising the Movement of National Liberation and the Authentic Nationalist Center finished third, taking 21 seats.

Both the Christian Democrats and the conservatives said they would form a coalition with the new Centrist Movement to control a majority of votes in the chamber. But the Centrist leader, newspaper publisher Jorge Carpio Nicolle, said he would not join forces with either party.