The social democrat Bernardo Arévalo assumes the position of president of Guatemala this Sunday for the next four years, amidst the judicial pressure exerted by a highly questioned Prosecutor’s Office against his unexpected victory in the August elections, which thus broke with decades of conservative governments.
Arévalo has run into the obstacles of a Prosecutor’s Office that even tried to prevent him from the right to compete in a second round that he had won at the polls and that he is sure that he has not yet said the last word about him.
“They are going to try something,” Arévalo warned this week during one of his last interviews before taking office as president. “They are drowning. We have said it insistently, they are desperate measures of people who are about to lose their business and try in any way to prevent it,” he said.
Finally, an appeal from the Constitutional Court ensured his participation in that second round, in which he comfortably prevailed over the ruling party. Since then, it has been the subject of persecution led by the Judiciary, with some of its representatives included in those lists drawn up by the United States to point out alleged anti-democratic and corrupt agents.
This is the case of the head of the Public Ministry, Consuelo Porras – whom Arévalo has already confirmed that he will ask her to resign -, the prosecutors Cinthia Monterroso and Rafael Curruchiche, or Judge Fredy Orellana, who this week again urged the Court Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) to comply with the suspension of the Semilla Movement, Arévalo’s party in the elections.
The persecution has been widely questioned by international organizations that, in line with Arévalo’s complaints, have come to speak of a “technical coup d’état”, as well as by a large sector of the Guatemalan population, dissatisfied with the “pact of the corrupt.” ” denounced by the new president.
JUDICIAL PERSECUTION
The Semilla Movement focused its campaign on messages against corruption and the recovery of democracy, in a country where for years the traditional party system co-opted institutions to benefit the particular interests of politicians, businessmen, the military and even organized crime. .
The first stage of this persecution began when, after managing to sneak into the second round against all odds, the a priori favorites of that event, such as the ruling party Vamos, demanded the repetition of the elections under allegations of fraud, against the transparency defended by international missions.
Subsequently, Attorney General Porras and Special Prosecutor Curruchiche entered the scene, filing a lawsuit for fraud against the Semilla Movement for the alleged use of false signatures to be registered.
CHALLENGES OF THE NEW GOVERNMENT
Son of the country’s first elected president, the well-regarded Juan José Arévalo (1945-1951) – responsible for profound social reforms – will have as his main challenge the governability of a country that has experienced one of its most turbulent electoral processes in recent years. time.
In addition to the processes opened against him, the suspension of the Semilla Movement, or the attempts by prosecutors to strip him of his immunity, Arévalo will have to deal with a Congress controlled by conservatives, in which he only has 23 votes. the 160 seats of which it is made up.
Arévalo has promised to invest in infrastructure to generate jobs and work on the development of poverty-stricken areas in order to prevent not only crime but also mass migrations to the United States.
To carry out these reforms that the country needs so much, it will have to come to an agreement not only with social sectors with which it seems to get along, but also with a ruling class linked to the Army and the private sector that has already shown its reluctance to change.
