[14] The failed coup d'état on 13 November 1960 usually marks the beginning of the Guatemalan Civil War, a bloody affair that lasted 36 years and claimed the lives of an estimated 200,000 people.
[17] The failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961 and his purported erratic behavior convinced part of the military and the United States to rid themselves of Ydígoras Fuentes, which finally succeeded after several attempts in March 1963.
[20] In 1966, the law professor Julio César Méndez Montenegro was elected to the presidency, but was only allowed to take up the position under the condition, that he would not interfere in matters of internal security or the military.
[21][22] The year also saw the creation of Mano Blanca, a right-wing paramilitary group associated with the MLN, founded to prohibit Méndez Montenegro from taking office and to counter left-wing activism.
[23][24] The subsequent "white terror" coupled with the Zacapa program, severely crippled the guerrilla force based in eastern Guatemala, which in turn tried to avoid detection by hiding in cities.
[26][27] The tense security situation led both right-wing military factions, namely the MLN and PID to unify for the elections in 1970, to counter the reforms initiated under Méndez Montenegro, which the army perceived as infringing on their autonomy.
[28] The incoming government of Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio initiated another counterinsurgency to stifle the FAR and began to entrench the military in the Guatemalan economy, chiefly by establishing the Army Bank, which handed out loans to the officer corps.
[30] Instead of continuing with the foco strategy of confronting the army in the countryside, which inflicted heavy losses on them, they saw the need to expand their social base to indigenous communities and middle class intellectuals and professionals.
[35] Similarly the Guerrilla Army of the Poor was established in 1972, as a splinter of the FAR, caused by ideological and tactical differences akin to ORPA, in that they saw the greatest revolutionary potential in indigenous people.
[39][40] Lucas García tried to solidify his hold on power by integrating the Mano Blanca into the regular military, while establishing the Ejercito Secreto Anti-Comunista, a paramilitary group beholden to himself.
[47] The military responded with a widespread counter-insurgency campaign, linked with a divide and conquer strategy, by organizing the recruitment of indigenous people into, so-called "self-defense patrols" (Patrullas de Autodefensa Civil (PAC)), to control their communities.
[31] During his rule, Rios Montt tried to eradicate the insurgency by banning the activities of political parties and committing various massacres against the population in the Guatemalan highlands, thereby removing the recruitment pool of the URNG.
[55] Ríos Montt's eventual downfall from power followed a similar path as his ascension, with a coup by his Minister of Defence Óscar Humberto Mejía Víctores in August 1983.
[39] His overthrow ended the bloodiest episode of the civil war and the Guatemalan genocide, in which approximately 150,000 civilians were killed between mid 1981 and 1983 and which led to widespread displacement of another 1.5 million people.
[56][57][58] The Victoria 82 campaign, as it was called by Ríos Montt, proved to be highly successful against the guerrilla though, which had to retreat to remote rural zones, while its leadership fled to Mexico City.
[53] After the election of Vinicio Cerezo in 1985, the truncated civil society in Guatemala revitalized to some degree, which convinced a significant part of mid-level cadres to abandon armed struggle, subsequently reducing the organisations leverage during the peace negotiations.
[67] According to the FAR commander Pablo Monsanto, the guerilla entered the first negotiations with the Cerezo administration to reorganize and rearm itself and only later reached a point, where a political solution to the conflict seemed beneficial and unavoidable.
[68] By the time a civilian government returned to office in 1986, the URNG recognized that coming to power through armed struggle was out of the question, and they took initiatives to negotiate a political solution.
[citation needed] From 1986 to 1996, the army and government were drawn into a peace process moderated and verified by the United Nations and including other international actors as key players.
The party drew significant support from part of their former strongholds and majority indigenous departments Huehuetenango, Quetzaltenango and El Quiché, where in each the alliance was able to win an electoral district seat.
For the elections in 2011 the party entered into a political alliance with Winaq, MNR, the URNG splinter ANN and 60 civil society groups to form the Broad Front of the Left.
[90] Broadly seen as a positive development inside the left, the coalition only yielded limited electoral success, returning only two seats, one each for San Marcos and Huehuetenango, to the legislature with approximately 3.3% in the congressional elections and 3.2% for the presidential candidate and Winaq founder Rigoberta Menchú.
[95][96] Ceto, who had already been a vice presidential candidate for the party in 2003, campaigned on a reinvigorated peace process as well as the eradication of poverty and roughly maintained their last result with 2.2% of the vote.
[98] On 29 January 2023, URNG and Winaq made their renewed alliance public and announced their plans to nominate Amílcar Pop and Mónica Enríquez as their presidential ticket for the upcoming elections.
[100] Moreover, the parties aimed to cooperate with Semilla to win the mayorship of Guatemala City, which ultimately came to fruition when the coalition nominated Juan Francisco Solórzano Foppa, the former director of the Superintendency of the Tax Administration (SAT), for the position.
[107] The party is generally opposed to large mining projects, citing the adverse effects these have on rural communities and the local environment, while profits are usually siphoned off to multinational companies.
[108] The party supported the implementation of a UN sponsored Commission for the Investigation of Illegal Groups and Clandestine Security Organizations in Guatemala (CICIACS) reached in an agreement between the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Human Rights Ombudsman in March 2003, but heavily criticized the Berger administration for its approach towards its translation into law, which it viewed as weak and inadequate and inhibited by delay tactics.
[109][110][111] In December 2006, a new agreement between the UN and the government led to the creation of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), which finally began to operate in September 2007, after being greenlit by the Constitutional Court and Congress in May and August 2007, respectively.
[126] Marcos Ramírez, the mayor of Playa Grande also stated that these projects should be built and maintained by the local and national governments instead of relinquishing control thereof to multinational corporations.