Guatemala is immersed in a great political storm in the middle of the electoral process to designate its new president.
The intervention of the Public Ministry (MP, prosecutor’s office), which on Wednesday requested the suspension of one of the two matches that passed to the second round of the elections, unleashed a wave of reactions inside and outside the Central American country.
The candidate whose party they are threatening to outlaw, Bernardo Arévalo, of the Seed Movement, described the prosecutors’ action as a “technical coup,” while the European Union and the United States warned of serious risks for the already questioned Guatemalan democracy.
The Constitutional Court (CC) of Guatemala protected Semilla this Thursday and blocked the controversial suspension of political formation.
The CC’s decision, at the request of Semilla’s lawyers, opens the way for their candidate’s participation in the second round of elections on August 20.
We give you some clues to what is happening.
1. The controversial first round
It all started when the results of the first round of the elections, held on June 25, were announced.
Sandra Torreswho was first lady during the government of Álvaro Colom (2008-11), and Bernardo Arevaloson of the historic president Juan José Arévalo (1945-51), occupied first and second place.
The candidate of the National Unity of Hope (UNE) obtained 15% of the votes and that of Movimiento Semilla 12%.
The advance to the second round of Arévalo, a 64-year-old sociologist and former diplomat, was quite a surprise, since previous polls gave him less than 5% of the votes.
Despite his long career as a politician and diplomat, the Semilla candidate considers himself a candidate from outside the Guatemalan “establishment” that has seized power in recent decades.
Besides, its banner is the fight against corruption in institutions, an endemic disease that has worsened in recent years, according to international organizations, which have criticized the progressive loss of independence of the judiciary and the harassment of independent media and journalists in Guatemala.
When the surprising results of the initial round were published, the first controversy arrived.
Nine conservative parties – including Vamos, of the current president Alejandro Giammatei – challenged them alleging “irregularities” and an alleged “electoral fraud” in favor of Arévalo.
The Constitutional Court accepted the precautionary measure and began a review of the electoral records.
After more than two weeks of suspense, On July 12, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) approved the results and confirmed the pass to the second round of Torres and Arévalo.
However, an unexpected movement again complicated everything.
2. The Seed suspension order
The Guatemalan Public Ministry has been the subject of strong criticism from the international community in the last year.
The US, the EU and non-governmental organizations have pointed out on several occasions the lack of independence of this institution, which they accuse of filing corruption complaints against Giammatei and orchestrate a campaign to persecute judges, prosecutors and lawyers who worked on cases against the government or the president.
The MP is led by the controversial prosecutor Consuelo Porras, while his right-hand man, Rafael Curruchiche, heads the Special Prosecutor’s Office against Impunity (Feci).
Both have been designated by the US State Department as two of the most responsible for institutional corruption in Guatemala.
The same day that the passage to the second round of the two candidates was confirmed, Feci, as an organ of the Public Ministry, asked the judges to suspend Semillawhich would mean excluding Arévalo from the electoral process.
According to Curruchiche, the Seventh Court of Guatemala responded to the petition and suspended the legal personality of the party, giving the Registry of Citizens a period of 24 hours to comply with the suspension.
The decision came as a result of a complaint filed in May 2022, alleging the fraudulent affiliation of a citizen to the party. In addition, Curruchiche assured that at least 12 deceased people had also been registered, something that Semilla flatly denies.
At the request to suspend the match followed a raid by the prosecutor’s office on the premises of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to confiscate files relating to Seed.
3. Arévalo’s complaint
Semilla’s presidential candidate called the suspension of the party “technical coup“.
He described it as “a desperate action by a criminal political group that realizes that its days are numbered in terms of control over political power,” in statements to the Guatevisión news program.
“What we are seeing is a Public Ministry, a Prosecutor’s Office led by a famously corrupt prosecutor who is using a court that has previously served him to carry out this type of legal tricks and make a resolution that is unconstitutional,” he said.
Arévalo and his defenders argue that the resolution of the Public Ministry violates article 92 of the Electoral and Political Parties Law, which is of constitutional rank and expressly indicates that a political party cannot be suspended during an electoral process.
The Seed Party filed an appeal before the Constitutional Court of Guatemala.
This Thursday, the CC granted said protection, with which Semilla is protected until there is a final resolution of the court order that suspended its legal personality.
“We continue campaigning during the electoral process,” he said.
The presidential candidate maintains that the suspension of his party has no legal basis since judges and prosecutors “have no jurisdiction to suspend a political party.”
“We are calm that the Supreme Electoral Tribunal is simply not going to attend to this illegal order,” he said.
4. The reactions (and what can happen now)
The suspension order of the Seed Movement, considered by many as a new attack on democracy in Guatemala, generated reactions both in the Central American country and internationally.
The Supreme Electoral Tribunal ratified its decision to keep the two winning candidates of the first round, ignoring the complaint from the Public Ministry.
The UNE candidate for the presidency, Sandra Torres, decided to suspend her electoral campaign in “solidarity with the voters of the Semilla party” and in protest of the “political-electoral situation we are experiencing.”
The Guatemalan business community, as well as the Episcopal Conference, also surrounded the candidate with messages in favor of respecting the results of the first round and against judicial intervention in the electoral process.
At the international level, the United States expressed in a statement its “deep concern” about the attempt to suspend the Semilla party and assured that actions like this “put at risk the legitimacy of the electoral process at the center of Guatemalan democracy.”
The European Union Electoral Observation Mission, for its part, supported the Supreme Electoral Tribunal for ratifying the results of the first round, assured that the actions of prosecutors “threaten the basic foundations of a democracy and called for the”cessation of the judicialization of the elections”.
International organizations such as Impunity Watch or WOLA also spoke out to demand that Guatemalan institutions respect the laws and the independence of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.
For their part, sectors related to the party in government defended the decision of prosecutors and judges, considering it a legal process that seeks to guarantee the integrity of the electoral system.
They argue that there are indications of irregularities in the affiliation of people to the party and that therefore it is necessary to investigate and take action in this regard.
With the resolution of the CC in favor of Semilla, Arévalo can go ahead with his candidacy for the August 20 elections, which according to analysts he has a good chance of winning, among other reasons due to the fact that Guatemalans are fed up with the traditional parties that have governed in recent years between constant accusations of corruption and bad practices.
However, the decision of the CC this Thursday is not final, so it is still possible that Semilla is excluded from the elections.
If this were to happen, it would raise important questions about the legitimacy and transparency of the process, as well as the options Guatemalans would have in choosing their next president.
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See original article on BBC