Here in Cobán, a coffee town in the country’s lush, mountainous middle, the concern can be heard, but mainly among older indigenous leaders who still shudder at armed Guatemalans in fatigues. It is harder to find on the streets, where there is a rise in murders, or among those, like Mrs. Molina’s children — Cindy, Ericka and Enrique — who have no personal experience with the civil war.

As frustrated 20-somethings, they now represent the majority of the electorate. More than 60 percent of Guatemala’s roughly 7.3 million registered voters are between 18 and 30 years old.

In their eyes, the war that killed an estimated 200,000 Guatemalan civilians is a vague shadow. The old ideological fight over whether leftist insurgents — angered by an American-backed coup in 1954 — would lead the country to Communism means nothing to them.

The army itself is a different institution now, far smaller, often responsible for passing out government aid and considered less corrupt than the police or the courts.

“Older people think that with soldiers we’ll go back to the past, back to war,” said Cindy Molina, 29. But the military and Mr. Pérez Molina, she said, “have the knowledge we need.”

Some experts believe the former general, who is also championing programs to fight poverty, is benefiting from Guatemala’s failure to fully confront its past. The country’s poorly financed schools do not include lessons on the war. Mr. Pérez Molina’s role has never been fully investigated (he has denied links to massacres) and despite efforts to unearth both memories and victims, most young Guatemalans are unaware of their country’s history.