Guatemala City Bernardo Arévalo will assume the presidency of Guatemala this Sunday, despite the obstacles he has had to avoid in recent months. His judicial ordeal began after he came second in the first round of the elections held on June 25. On the same day that the results were made official, judge Fredy Orellana ordered that the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) suspend the legal personality of the Moviment Llavor, his party. All this following an investigation in which, allegedly, the left-wing party, which surprisingly broke into the elections, was constituted through false signatures and rubrics of dead people.
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The investigations were led by the Attorney General of the Public Ministry, Consuelo Porras, and the head of the Special Prosecutor Against Impunity, Rafael Curruchiche, both included in the Engel List of the United States of corrupt and anti-democratic actors. In this way, the attack of the old policy began to prevent Arévalo from governing, who promises to “cleanse the country of the swamp of corruption”, which threatens the interests of thethe state in which.
The judiciary tried to put Guatemala’s democracy on the ropes by trying to leave citizens without the possibility of voting for Bernardo Arévalo in the second round on August 20. However, the TSE refused to outlaw the party until the end of the electoral period, which allowed the Moviment Llavor and its candidate to participate and defeat its rival, the right-wing Sandra Torres.
His resounding victory, after obtaining 2.4 million votes, far from calming spirits, reactivated the court order to suspend the Seed Movement, which was considered “illegal and unconstitutional” by the outgoing government, which denounced a “coup d’état” to prevent the investiture. When the electoral process ended on October 31 and the results of the second round were made official, the TSE obeyed the order of judge Orellana and left Arévalo without a party.
All this persecution caused thousands of people to take to the streets in defense of democracy and start and sustain an indefinite country shutdown, led by the indigenous authorities, who, since October 2, have been maintaining a peaceful resistance in front of the Public Ministry in Guatemala City, which are scheduled to end this Sunday, once the new authorities assume power.
The population thus resurrected the spirit of 2015, when there were massive demonstrations against corruption that led to the fall of the then president Otto Pérez Molina, who on January 3 was released from prison, where he had been since the 3 of September of that year.
One last attempt
The latest attempt by Guatemala’s political elites was to request the annulment of the elections. For this reason, prosecutor Curruchiche presented an investigation into alleged “irregularities” in the counting of votes by the TSE, which he accuses of colluding with Arévalo’s party to achieve victory. However, the Electoral Court has recalled that the results are “validated, official and unalterable”. The international observers also verified that the two electoral rounds were held transparently and without any kind of fraud.
In statements to the ARA, Arévalo points out that it is necessary to “cleanse the country of this band of criminals who have it occupied”. For this reason, he has repeatedly asked Consuelo Porras to resign, so he hopes that once he assumes power, “he will have the decency to submit his resignation”. He denounces that, in Guatemala, “there is no rule of law when political persecution is conducted from the Prosecutor’s Office against the people who are fighting against corruption”, although he points out that “the people are determined to rescue and establish their democracy”.
2024-01-13 20:20:28
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