GUATEMALA CITY (AP) -- Alfonso Portillo, a populist lawyer who built support by promising to fight crime, reduce unemployment and aid the poor, scored a resounding victory in Guatemala's first peacetime presidential elections in nearly 40 years.
With 98 percent of the vote counted Sunday night, Portillo, of the right-wing Guatemalan Republican Front, or FRG, had received 68 percent, compared with 32 percent for Oscar Berger, the candidate of President Alvaro Arzu's ruling National Advancement Party, also known as PAN. Officials said final results would not be released until later Monday."This triumph is not of Alfonso Portillo. It is not of the FRG. It is of the people of Guatemala," a proud Portillo told supporters in his victory speech at a hotel where election results were released. "The vote had a very clear message -- the need for change."
Berger conceded defeat in the election and congratulated Portillo in a news conference at PAN headquarters.
"We respect the decision that Guatemalans have made," Berger said in a live television interview.
Under a circus tent outside the hotel where election headquarters were based, large crowds of Portillo supporters sang, chanted and waved posters with their candidate's photo.
"Portillo is of the people," said 56-year-old Manuel de Jesus Aroche. "He can't resolve everything by himself, but he can start. We all have to work together like an army of ants to help Guatemala move forward."
Before Berger cast his vote Sunday morning, he said he would retire from politics if he lost the election. "I've served the city for nine years, and now I want to return to being a spectator, not a participant, and to keep up with the events of our country," he said.
Berger, 53, quit as Guatemala City mayor to run for the presidency.
In Guatemala City, the only district Berger won in the first round on Nov. 7, Portillo won 180,818 votes, compared with 152,400 for Berger.
Officials said 41 percent of voters had turned out to cast ballots, compared with more than 50 percent in the first round of voting on Nov. 7.
In that round, Portillo, 48, fell just short of the majority he needed to win outright. The incumbent, Arzu, is constitutionally barred from running again.
The country's support for Portillo -- a man whose scratchy voice has earned him the nickname "the hoarse chicken" -- stems in large part from his populist rhetoric, including promises to increase employment, reduce crime and help the rural poor.
In his victory speech, Portillo called for national reconciliation and promised to continue to implement the 1996 peace accords, which ended a 36-year civil war between the government and leftist rebels.
"There is no longer any pretext for the three major parties not to sit down and agree on the implementation of the peace accords," he said, referring to the Front, the Advancement Party, and the former guerrillas' New Nation Alliance.
When asked what his first priority would be, Portillo said it would remain a surprise.
Portillo has admitted killing two men while he was a student in the Mexican state of Guerrero in 1982 and fleeing the state to avoid a trial. He said the slayings were in self-defense but he believed he could not get a fair trial.
The case has since been closed.
Portillo also has dismissed concerns expressed by human rights groups and the international community over his ties to Efrain Rios Montt, a former military dictator who heads Portillo's party. Rios Montt's 17-month rule in 1982 and 1983 was marked by some of the worst human rights abuses committed during Guatemala's civil war.
He was not present at Portillo's victory celebration. Portillo told reporters that Rios Montt was vacationing on the Caribbean Coast.