Jorge Antonio Serrano Elías (born 26 April 1945) is a Guatemalan politician who served as President of Guatemala from January 14, 1991 to June 1, 1993. Life and career Serrano was born 26 April 1945 in Guatemala City as the son of Jorge Adán Serrano and Rosa Elías, who was of Lebanese descent. After attending school in Switzerland he graduated in industrial engineering from the University of San Carlos, and then attended Stanford University in California, U.S., where he studied economic growth and gained a doctorate in education and science. He then returned to Guatemala to become a civil servant. In 1976 he collaborated with various American Protestant churches to help the population recover from the devastating earthquake that had afflicted the country. He then published a document describing the miserable conditions under which the indigenous population lived, which resulted in his receiving threats. He went into exile in the US, only returning in 1982, to work in the government of fellow evangelical General Efraín Ríos Montt as Vice President of the Advisory Board to the government. In 1985 Serrano stood as presidential candidate for the Democratic Party of National Co-operation (PDCN) and the Revolutionary Party (PR), coming third with 12.6% of the vote. In September 1987 as the political parties representative he became one of the four members of the National Reconciliation Commission (CNR). President (1991–1993) Serrano became the presidential candidate for the Solidarity Action Movement (MAS) in the 1990 presidential elections. He lost the first round on November 11 with 24.1% of the vote, and won the second round against Jorge Carpio on January 6, 1991 with 68.1% of the vote. Carpio unsuccessfully tried to use Serrano's fundamentalist beliefs against him as a campaign issue. On January 14, Serrano replaced Vinicio Cerezo as President of Guatemala. He was the second non-Catholic to gain power in Guatemala, after Ríos Montt. The transfer of power marked the first time in decades that an incumbent president had peacefully surrendered power to an elected opposition victor. As his party gained only 18 of 116 seats in Congress, Serrano entered into a tenuous alliance with the Christian Democrats and Carpio's National Union of the Center (UCN). The Serrano administration's record was mixed. It had some success in consolidating civilian control over the army, replacing a number of senior officers and persuading the military to participate in peace talks with the URNG. He took