Thousands of Guatemalans, bereft of hope, leave their country each month, choosing the uncertainty of migration over the poverty, violence and corruption they know at home.

That is not expected to change even after Guatemalans vote Sunday for a new president.

The election is a runoff between a former first lady and a former prisons director, neither of whom inspires much confidence beyond their diehard supporters.

“The population that is aware is feeling profound apathy and frustration because they know that the elections are a farce,” Irma A. Velásquez Nimatuj, anthropologist and journalist, wrote in an interview conducted by text.

And on top of the country’s problems, it is one of a few Central American nations in the cross hairs of the Trump administration as it tries to transfer the burdens of curbing immigration in the United States to the countries where most immigrants come from.

Not so long ago, Guatemala was a beacon of hope in Latin America. Hundreds of thousands poured into the capital city’s main plaza to protest corruption, inspired by hard-hitting investigations that ran all the way to the nation’s president.

Today, those investigations are drawing to an end, the endemic corruption has been revived and a fatigue and cynicism has set upon the nation. All the hard work of a few years back seems to have come to nothing.

Sunday’s election seems a mere formality.

Although Guatemala posts steady economic growth, the World Bank says it has one of the highest rates of inequality in Latin America, with some of the worst poverty, malnutrition and maternal-child mortality rates in the region — particularly in Indigenous communities.

The former first lady, Sandra Torres, 63, is best known for running social programs during the presidency of her ex-husband, Álvaro Colom. While she is popular in the countryside, polls show that a significant number of voters say they would never vote for her.

Alejandro Giammattei, the former prisons director, 63, a conservative making his fourth run for the presidency, may capitalize on Torres’ unpopularity in cities. Turnout is expected to be low.