GUATEMALA CITY (AP) -- A populist lawyer and close ally of a
                  notorious former dictator soared to an overwhelming victory in Guatemala's
                  first postwar presidential elections, boosted by poor and working-class
                  voters who have felt betrayed and ignored by the ruling party.

                  Alfonso Portillo of the right-wing Guatemalan Republican Front captured 68
                  percent of the vote in Sunday's run-off election, while Oscar Berger of
                  President Alvaro Arzu's ruling National Advancement Party received almost
                  32 percent, according to final results announced Monday. Voter turnout was
                  nearly 41 percent. Arzu is banned by the constitution from seeking
                  re-election.

                  Portillo assumes office with a strong majority in Congress -- 63 of the 113
                  legislators are from the Front -- and close ties to the Congress'
                  president-elect, former dictator and Front founder Gen. Efrain Rios Montt.

                  Arzu's party controlled 42 of the 80 seats in Congress under the old system.
                  The number of seats has since been increased.

                  Throughout his campaign, Portillo has capitalized on poor and middle-class
                  frustration with the current government's austere privatization policies and the
                  increase in crime since the 1996 peace accords that ended a 36-year civil
                  war.

                  Portillo will face many challenges. One will be to hang on to that popular
                  support while not scaring away the small but powerful business community
                  that was influential in Arzu's government.

                  "There are a lot of expectations from the poor people that things get better,
                  but on the other hand the business community doesn't have any faith in the
                  government to make economic reforms," said Manfredo Marroquin, head of
                  Citizen's Action, a political think tank in Guatemala City.

                  In addition, Portillo has promised his supporters -- many of them poor
                  Indians whose villages were the target of state-sponsored massacres during
                  the war -- that he will spare no one in punishing human rights violations.

                  Yet one of his biggest allies, Rios Montt, has been blamed for some of the
                  worst bloodshed that occurred during his 17-month rule in 1982 and 1983.
                  That complicates the country's relationship with the international community,
                  Marroquin said.

                  "It is going to take more to sell the idea that countries should help Guatemala
                  with the peace accords when the government includes Rios Montt," he said.

                  But Rios Montt -- a charismatic leader who counts on his own large base of
                  popular support -- actually could be the key to ensuring support for many of
                  Portillo's promised reforms _ including land reform and the development of
                  the rural poor, major tenets of the peace accords.

                  "The General is the unifying force in the party," said political analyst and
                  newspaper columnist Edgar Gutierrez. "Portillo won't have any difficulty
                  governing with Rios Montt."

                  Portillo's victory speech Sunday night rang out with the populist rhetoric that
                  characterized his boisterous campaign.

                  "The power is going to be with the people, not with the president, not with
                  the congress," he shouted.

                  That is just what voters like 26-year-old Juan Graviel Tuy like to hear.
                  "Portillo is a real Guatemalan," Tuy said. "He is sympathetic to the people
                  and I have total confidence in him. He's a good man."