Progressive Bernardo Arévalo’s celebration of his election victory last Sunday in Guatemala did not last long. Just two days after his landslide victory, the machinery intended to discredit the electoral process and jeopardize the inauguration of elected officials has been reactivated. With 58% of the more than 2.4 million votes cast on August 20, the Seed movement candidate became Guatemala’s next president.
This Tuesday, the European Union Observation Mission (EU MOE) referred in its preliminary report on election day to attempts to disband the seed movement and investigations into citizens who voted before the second ballot.
The mission “believes that interference in the electoral process has jeopardized the right and opportunity to participate in authentic elections and respect for the will of voters expressed in the June 25 elections,” the released document reads . And they warn of possible similar action by prosecutors and the judiciary to criminalize the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) and revoke Semilla’s legal status, which “would limit voters’ right to have their elected representatives take office.”
The report recalls that such interference would “contradict international and regional commitments to which Guatemala has signed”. He did, however, commend the development of the second round, which he said “represented a contrast to a pre-election period marked by continuous attacks on the rule of law, the criminalization of both the TSE and Semilla, and attempts to annul the TSE and Semilla.” , was marked.” “Free will of voters expressed in first ballot”. It also said that the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity (FECI), headed by Rafael Curruchiche, announced a few days before the elections that judicial action would continue after the vote.
The State Ministry requests lists of volunteers from the electoral boards
Like the European Election Observation Mission, the electoral authorities, business chambers and civil society organizations celebrated the participation of citizens in the second ballot, both those who voted and the more than 125,000 volunteers who made up the electoral boards and voters. Prosecutors and everyone involved in the electoral process.
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AME3141. GUATEMALA CITY, 08/21/2023. – The President-elect of Guatemala, Bernardo Arévalo (i), together with Vice-President Karin Herrera in Guatemala City (Guatemala). Guatemala this Sunday decided to change course with the election of academic Bernardo Arévalo de León as its new president for the 2024-2028 period and a renewed rejection of the candidacy of former first lady Sandra Torres Casanova, the third in a row. EFE/ Esteban Biba Esteban Biba (EFE)
But this Tuesday, the State Department asked the Electoral Court for the lists of citizens’ names that the panels, evaluators, data entry officers and their coordinators have made, and the addresses to which they can send subpoenas. Prosecutors have also asked for the immunity of the election official who refused to dissolve the Arévalo party to be waived, albeit on grounds unrelated to the seed movement.
At the moment, the actions taken by the Ministry of State do not affect the internal work of the seed movement, which is moving from the work team that won the elections to the one that will take over the government, explains re-elected MP Samuel Pérez. “It is obvious that Curruchiche will continue his attempt to boycott the electoral process, but I believe that he will be completely isolated and our legal team has been ready since the first round,” said the MP when the criminal harassment began. “We have never been stopped by legal action,” he added.
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The MP’s recent actions, led by Consuelo Porras and the Curruchiche prosecutor – both described by the United States as anti-democratic and corrupt actors – are affecting the electoral process, not party members. Even before the second round, several analysts warned of intentions to annul the elections. But now they emphasize that the significant difference of 800,000 votes that Arévalo garnered over his contender, former first lady Sandra Torres, has shifted the balance of power.
“The outcome of the second round was categorical and clear,” and citizens are celebrating what they believe is “the beginning of a new political era in the country,” analyst Marco Canteo told EL PAÍS. “While the State Department’s actions are not surprising, it is surprising that they failed to get the message from the ballot box,” he said.
The official publication of the results of the first ballot was delayed due to the denunciation of alleged abuses that forced a new count of the votes with no significant discrepancies in the results. The path to the second round was later marked by the investigations by the public prosecutor responsible for Curruchiche into alleged forgery of signatures on the founding of the seed movement. And Torres, the candidate who lost to Arévalo, made the prosecutor’s speech his own. After learning the results on Sunday, she did not comment for the time being. Meanwhile, his party, the National Unity of Hope (UNE), assures that it will not accept the results until doubts about the elections are “resolved”.
Recent actions by the prosecutor show that “the penitentiary system will continue to intervene in a process that should, in the first place, be electoral and, on the other hand, a citizenship that can be activated at any time in the plazas and headquarters of the judicial institutions,” says the analyst.
According to the EU election mission, “the vigorous declarations and the mobilization” of various parts of the population and the international community “showed a remarkable consolidation of forces and guaranteed compliance with the election calendar and the election results”. This is the scenario that instills peace of mind in Congressman Samuel Pérez and allows him to say that Curruchiche has been left alone in his endeavours.
A bill from the past
Regarding the election official under investigation, the Electoral Crimes Prosecutor’s Office has requested the waiver of the immunity of Ramiro Muñoz, the director of the Supreme Electoral Court’s General Register of Citizens, who in July refused to comply with an order suspending his legal status in the Sami movement.
However, the new investigations have nothing to do with this case. Prosecutors’ charges against Muñoz now relate to the possible commission of electoral abuse of office and dereliction of duty in connection with alleged irregularities in the registration of Prosperidad Ciudadana, the party that nominated farmer Carlos Pineda for president that he was banned from the competition . This new investigation accuses Muñoz of overlooking irregularities that came to light during the Pineda campaign in late 2022.
A month after the vote, Muñoz found himself in an extreme situation when Judge Fredy Orellana, sanctioned by the United States as a corrupt and undemocratic actor, ordered him to suspend the seed movement’s legal status. The registrar refused to proceed with the order under the Elections and Political Parties Act, which prohibits the dissolution of parties during an electoral process, accusing that the only one who can annul parties is the Supreme Electoral Court and not a criminal judge.
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