The record
Business and Political Career
Roberto Arzú's career combines more than three decades in the private sector with a role in national public life. He came to politics from business rather than the other way around, and the sequence matters: almost everything he proposes for Guatemala is framed in terms of what makes an investor hire another worker.
Business track record
Across his career he has participated in the creation, expansion and consolidation of more than seventy ventures and commercial projects, contributing to more than 30,000 direct and indirect jobs in Guatemala. He began young, launching and developing projects across several sectors of the economy at once.
Real estate development
Residential and mixed-use projects, including oceanfront communities at Marina del Sur.
Construction
Commercial complexes and infrastructure for retail and services.
Commerce
Convenience-store chains built around the everyday consumption of Guatemalan families.
Advertising
Agencies and out-of-home media businesses serving national brands.
Services
Operating companies across logistics, hospitality and entertainment.
Political track record
He belongs to one of the families with the strongest tradition of public service in Guatemala. His father, Álvaro Arzú Irigoyen, signed the 1996 Peace Accords that ended thirty-six years of internal armed conflict and served five terms as Mayor of Guatemala City, driving a deep urban and administrative transformation of the capital.
Roberto Arzú built his own career around economic freedom, job creation, private investment, institutional modernization and public safety — and around a style of direct communication with citizens rather than through party intermediaries. He ran for president in 2019, receiving roughly 267,000 votes; his 2023 candidacy was blocked before voters had the chance to weigh in.
Leadership of the Cabal party
He is today the principal leader of Cabal, one of the political organizations with the greatest territorial growth in Guatemala. The party has presence in more than 100 municipal governments, a significant legislative presence and a consolidated national structure that reaches well beyond the capital.
100+
Municipal governments
National
Consolidated party structure
Congress
Significant legislative presence
Five strategic pillars
His proposal for the country rests on five pillars aimed at national transformation.
- 01Security and the rule of lawInvestment, employment and growth only thrive where people are safe and the law applies to everyone. Zero tolerance for transnational gangs.
- 02Attracting investmentNational and foreign capital brought in through policies that make it straightforward to open, run and grow a business.
- 03Massive formal job creationFormal employment treated as the country's main engine of economic development and social mobility.
- 04Modernizing and simplifying the stateFewer bureaucratic barriers, merit-based public service, transparent contracting and institutions that actually function.
- 05Economic opennessOpen markets and real competition, breaking the monopolies that corrupt elites have spent decades protecting.
Guatemala as a regional platform
The strategy behind those pillars is geographic as much as economic. Guatemala sits close to the United States, has a young population and holds real logistics potential. Arzú argues that those advantages, used deliberately, can turn the country into a regional platform for manufacturing, commerce, services and exports rather than a supplier of migrants to somebody else's labor market.