By LISA J. ADAMS, Associated Press Writer

                GUATEMALA CITY--Thirsting for more jobs, less crime and a government that won't cater to
           special interests, many Guatemalan voters invested their hopes Sunday in an admitted killer and close
           ally of one of the country's most brutal dictators.
                Alfonso Portillo, of the right-wing Guatemalan Republican Front, was expected to win Sunday's
           presidential runoff election by a wide margin. A recent Gallup poll showed him with 69 percent of the
           vote to 31 percent for Oscar Berger, the candidate of President Alvaro Arzu's ruling National
           Advancement Party. The poll had a margin of error of three percentage points.
                On Nov. 7, the populist lawyer fell just short of the majority he needed to win outright in the first
           round of the country's first peacetime presidential election in nearly 40 years. The incumbent, Arzu, is
           constitutionally barred from running again.
                The country's support for Portillo -a man whose scratchy, Godfather-like voice has earned him the
           nickname "the hoarse chicken" -stems in large part from his populist rhetoric, including promises to
           increase employment, reduce crime and help the rural poor.
                "You can't walk alone after seven or eight. You can't even walk to church, there's so many gangs
           and robbers," said 40 -year-old Maria Cule, who cast her vote for Portillo on Sunday morning in the
           small Indian town of San Juan Sacatepequez.
                Portillo has admitted killing two men while he was a student in the Mexican state of Guerrero in
           1982 and fleeing the state to avoid a trial. He said the slayings were in self-defense but he believed he
           could not get a fair trial.
                The case has since been closed. Portillo turned the matter into a campaign slogan, saying if he
           could defend himself, he could also defend his country's people.
                Portillo also has dismissed concerns expressed by human rights groups and the international
           community over his ties to Efrain Rios Montt, a former military dictator who heads Portillo's party.
           Montt's 17 -month rule in 1982 and 1983 was marked by some of the worst human rights abuses
           committed during Guatemala's civil war.
                The constitution bars the flamboyant Rios Montt, a former coup leader, from seeking the
           presidency. The party chose Portillo both this year and in 1995, when he lost to Arzu.
                In the village of San Juan Sacatepequez, 20 miles north of Guatemala City, several voters echoed a
           common sentiment in Guatemala: that they would rather vote for Portillo than re-elect a ruling party
           that has done little to rescue them from inflation, poverty and crime.
                The ruling party "received millions of dollars from Europe and the U.S. but we farmers have
           received nothing," said Luis Antonio Patzun, 42.