Por Eliane Portillo

Retired general Otto Pérez was sworn in Saturday as president of Guatemala, promising to restore order in a country awash in drug-related violence and near the brink of bankruptcy.

Pérez, 61, vowed to use his four-year term to fight corruption and impunity, put public finances on a sounder footing and restore public respect for authority.

But Pérez acknowledged the depth of problems facing the Central American country, where half of the 14.3-million-strong population lives in poverty, calling it a nation very near moral and economic bankruptcy.