Guerrilla Army of the Poor
According to political scientist Regina Bateson, in this new phase of his career Ríos Montt embraced populism as his core political strategy. He was an FRG congressman between 1990 and 2004. In 1994, he was elected president of the unicameral legislature. He tried to run again in the 1995–96 Guatemalan general election, but was barred from entering the race. Alfonso Portillo was chosen to replace Ríos Montt as the FRG's presidential candidate, and he narrowly lost to Álvaro Arzú of the conservative National Advancement Party. In his youth, Portillo had been affiliated with the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP), one of the Marxist insurgent groups that later became part of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) and which Ríos Montt had combated during his term as president in 1982-83.