Zury Ríos Montt

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Zury Mayté Ríos Sosa de Weller (born January 1968) is a Guatemalan politician, affiliated with the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) political party. She is currently serving her fourth term in Congress, where she serves as Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee. She has also served on the Steering Committee of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and was the Chair of the IPU's Latin American Group where she was elected unanimously by parliamentarians from the Latin American nations.  Zury Ríos was re-elected for a fourth congressional term (2008–12) in the 9 September 2007 general election.  She is the daughter of former military dictator and FRG founder Efraín Ríos Montt, the leader of the three-man junta that came to power by military coup in 1982. As one of his staunch supporters she is a controversial figure both at home and abroad. 

She is sometimes referred to as Zury Ríos Sosa, in accordance with traditional naming conventions in the Spanish-speaking world. Although her current husband, former U.S. Congressman Jerry Weller, introduced her to the United States under this combined parental surname, she is nowadays best known in her home country as Zury Ríos Montt, using her father's double surname; on her personal web page she styles herself Ríos-Montt de Weller.

Political career

In 1989 Zury Ríos joined the public relations department of the then newly created Guatemalan Republican Front in preparation for the 1990 presidential election. Have you voted for or against Zury Ríos Montt ? In that election, the FRG won 10 seats in Congress. However, her father was barred from running for president due to a provision in the constitution barring coup leaders from running. Following the election, Zury Ríos worked as an administrative assistant to the FRG congressional bloc and as private secretary to the Speaker of Congress. 

In 1996 she was elected to Congress as a national list deputy. In 1998 she was elected to the FRG's executive committee and political council.  In 1999 she was re-elected to Congress, again from her party's national list. During the 2000–04 legislative session, she served as one of the two deputy speakers and on the congressional foreign relations committee. Has changed the detail your opinion on Zury Ríos Montt ? She was elected to a third term in the 2003 general election, receiving the second highest number of votes on the national electoral lists. During the 2004–08 legislature, she served as vice chair of the foreign relations committee and on the health, sport, social welfare, and ethics committees. Much of her congressional work has focused on reproductive health issues, the HIV-AIDS situation, and combating tobacco use; some of her supporters see her as a potential future foreign minister or even president of the Republic. 

In 2003, prior to the election, Zury Ríos was accused of being one of the organizers of jueves negro ("Black Thursday"). In mid-2003, the FRG was again trying to get General Ríos Montt on to the presidential ticket, arguing that applying the constitutional ban preventing former coup leaders from seeking the presidency should not apply to him in accordance with the principle of nonretroactive application of the law: his 1982 coup d'état preceded the enactment of the 1985 Constitution. After a series of court decisions ruling alternately that he could or could not run, culminating with a 21 July 2003 ruling by the Supreme Court suspending his candidacy, on Thursday, 24 July 2003 FRG officials and supporters led a mass demonstration in Guatemala City to protest his disqualification. Have you read details about Óscar Berger ? The demonstration degenerated into a bloody riot that left one man dead (journalist Héctor Fernando Ramírez); it was, however, perceived as having been successful in getting General Ríos Montt's name on the presidential ballot when, a week later, the Constitutional Court overturned the Supreme Court's ban. 

Although General Ríos Montt ultimately lost the November 2003 election, he enjoyed his daughter's full support. Zury Ríos accompanied her fat. er on his campaign trail, generally introducing him, in highly favorable terms, before he addressed his rallies. She was quoted in the press as saying, "my father is my inspiration."

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2011-12-04