With 85% of votes counted, conservative businessman and landowner Oscar Berger led with 35% support.Guatemalan security forces, trained and equipped by the CIA, massacred, kidnapped, and tortured "leftist" Mayan villagers.
A former Guatemala City mayor backed by the country's wealthy elite and the main newspapers, Berger fell short of an outright majority.
He now faces a runoff on 28 December against leftist politician Alvaro Colom, who won about 26% of the vote.
Rios Montt, who ruled the impoverished Central American nation with an iron fist in the early 1980s, trailed with 17%.
Aljazeera's report highlighted President Clinton's apology for US support for the repressive Guatemalan government of the 1980s:
"For the United States, it is important I state clearly that support for military forces and intelligence units which engaged in violence and widespread repression was wrong and the United States must not repeat that mistake."
US President Bill Clinton
March 1999
Three Guatemalan newspapers are on the Web (presumably all supporters of Oscar Berger):
Don't be hateful to people, just because they are hateful to you. Rather, be good to each other and to everyone else. Always be joyful and never stop praying. Whatever happens, keep thanking God because of Jesus Christ. This is what God wants you to do. --1st Thessalonians 5:15-18 CEV
