Washington, DC – The OAS Secretary General, Luis Almagro, on Monday urged the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) not to interfere in the presidential elections convened for June in the Central American country.
Almagro made this request after a meeting in Washington with the candidate Sandra Torres, who is being investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office of Guatemala and the CICIG for the alleged commission of electoral crimes in the 2015 campaign.
Torres, first lady of Guatemala between 2008 and 2011, already participated in the 2015 presidential elections, losing in the second round to the current Guatemalan president, Jimmy Morales.
Almagro said on Twitter to have dialogue with Torres “on the importance of ensuring transparent elections, with legal and political certainty, and to allow the work of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal without the influence of external factors, including the CICIG.”
The meeting in Washington with Almagro also involved the vice-presidential formula of Torres, former Foreign Minister Carlos Raúl Morales.
The Supreme Court of Justice of Guatemala rejected at the end of March the request for preliminary hearing of the Prosecutor’s Office against Torres for the crimes of illicit electoral financing, unregistered electoral financing and illicit association.
The investigation of the Prosecutor’s Office supported by the CICIG indicates that the party of Torres, the opposition National Unity of Hope (UNE), did not report to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal an amount of 19.5 million quetzales (about 2.53 million euros). dollars) in 2015.
Some of this undeclared money would come from the investigations of a bribery scheme uncovered in early 2018 known as “Influence Trafficker.”
Both the Public Prosecutor’s Office and CICIG have submitted appeals for protection of the decision of the Supreme Court of Justice.
Since 2015, these two organizations have waged a crusade against corruption and have uncovered multiple cases involving former members of the Executive and relatives of the current president.
Morales has not renewed the mandate of the CICIG, which expires in September 2019, and last August he took advantage of a trip to the United States by the head of this agency, the Colombian jurist Iván Velásquez, to prohibit him from returning to the country. (EFEUSA )
