Thelma Cabrera (born September 21,1970) is an indigenous (Maya Mam) human rights defender and politician. Cabrera ran for president of Guatemala in 2019 as part of the political party, Movement for the Liberation of Peoples. She finished fourth in the 2019 election garnering 10.3% of the popular vote. Upbringing Born in a peasant campesino family, Cabrera grew up in El Asintal on the west coast of Guatemala and married at the age of 15. In her early years, Cabrera worked alongside her parents and siblings harvesting coffee. When asked about her upbringing, Cabrera told The Guardian “I came from nothing – from under the rubbish. But for many years I’ve worked with communities suffering lack of opportunities, undignified wages, migration and violence as a result of structural problems and corruption". Growing up, Cabrera did not have access to further education (University, Primary School) like many other indigenous women in Guatemala. As a result, her political opponents used her lack of schooling to portray her as uneducated and uncouth throughout her campaign trail. Despite her credibility being questioned, Cabrera has continued to emphasize to her supporters that she has "much knowledge in the university of life" and her lack of schooling will not prevent her from enacting change. Inspired by her rough upbringing, Cabrera has pledged to tackle malnutrition, illiteracy, landlessness, social exclusion and poverty – all of which she encountered as a child. Given that one in three indigenous women has no access to healthcare and family services in Guatemala, Cabrera has made it a focus of her politics and policies to provide high-quality education and an efficient healthcare systems to underprivileged women in Guatemala . Politics and Presidential Campaign (2019) Cabrera has been an active member of Peasant Development Committee (; CODECA), a grassroots human rights organization working to improve the situation of the rural poor of Guatemala. Cabrera was selected to represent CODECA's newly formed political party, Movement for the Liberation of Peoples (; MLP), to run in the 2019 Guatemalan general election on June 16, 2019. Both the MLP and CODECA have dealt with severe backlash regarding their mission to empower and represent indigenous communities. Activists and politicians like Cabrera have received countless death threats throughout their respective campaigns. In 2018, following the formation of the MLP, a member of CODECA's national leadership, Luis Arturo Marroquín was murdered. Seven other members of CODECA and Campesino organizations were