After months of back and forth, which included tax evasion and a parliamentary attempt to block the formation of the new Congress, Bernardo Arevalo de Leon He finally assumed the presidency at dawn on Monday the 15th. Guatemala.
SEE: Turbulent leadership change in Guatemala: “Restoring institutionality will be Arévalo’s biggest challenge”
What happened on Sunday in the Guatemalan parliament was nothing more than a small sample of one of the biggest challenges that the new president will face, various analysts commented to El Comercio.
“This is to be expected from now on: an irrational and illegal opposition that retains control of the courts and a public ministry will continue to operate with this level of impunity. “A lot will depend on the leadership that the elected president shows to counteract this pact,” Manfredo Marroquín, political analyst at Citizen Action and part of Transparency International in Guatemala, told this newspaper on Sunday.
Arévalo's inauguration, scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, took place early Monday morning due to a series of delays in Congress.
– A country divided –
“Last Sunday we saw a condensed version of what we predict for the four years of Arévalo’s government. Because although he won the presidency with popular support, he has a very fragmented Congress and in Guatemala the greatest power lies in the Congress,” comments Juan Diego Godoy, a Guatemalan analyst and journalist specializing in politics.
Arévalo became president after defeating the president's former first lady, Sandra Torres, in a runoff election. For this reason, the currently ruling Semilla movement only has 23 of the 160 seats in the Guatemalan Congress.
The rest of the seats are divided between 17 parties, with the main legislative force for this period being precisely the National Unity of Hope of Torres. However, on the same Sunday, another unexpected turn of events occurred in the chamber, which led to Samuel Pérez of the Semilla movement taking over the chairmanship of the board of directors.
“Torres is a staunch enemy of Arévalo. However, in recent days there has been a divorce among its members, 21 of its 28 deputies abandoned ship on Sunday, leaving Torres with only 7 deputies and allying himself with Arévalo. Thus, the Semilla movement gained 44 votes, which changed the overall distribution of votes and allowed it to take over the chairmanship of the board. But they will charge them dearly for the favor that they owe to these 21 representatives, so I would not say that they have full power in Congress,” explains Godoy.
However, Arévalo will not only face the challenge of negotiating with a very heterogeneous Congress, but also of unifying a very divided country. “Guatemala is a conservative country that has had a series of moderate right-wing governments. Arévalo arouses concern among the upper class, who fear that he is a Pedro Castillo or a Gustavo Petro. The president will have to reconcile this part of the population with the other part, that of the indigenous leaders, which was his main banner in October,” says Godoy.
Street support was crucial for Arévalo to become president of Guatemala.
– Corruption, the big problem –
Edgar Ortiz, Guatemalan constitutional lawyer and political analyst, said trade on Sunday that Arévalo was “a very conciliatory guy with negotiating skills.” “He is an expert in peacebuilding.” A quality that will be tested during his four-year term as he seeks to implement the anti-corruption agenda that won him the runoff.
The president finds himself at the helm in a country that has been mired in a corruption crisis for more than a decade and is currently ranked 150th out of 180 possible places in Transparency International's corruption perception index.
“During the government of Otto Pérez Molina, who resigned under pressure from citizens and was convicted of three corruption cases, we were ranked 118th. So imagine what the government of (Alejandro) Giammattei was like,” Godoy says.
Giammattei leaves office as Guatemala's most disapproved president of the last 12 years.
According to the 2023 Libre poll by local newspaper Prensa Libre, Arévalo's predecessor ended his administration with 74.7% disapproval and only 7% of Guatemalans trusted him. The main reason for Giammattei's terrible perception was the countless corruption suspicions that surrounded him during his four years in power.
These included allegations of co-opting the justice system and allying with Attorney General Consuelo Porras in exchange for not investigating. Furthermore, this alliance would have led to the obscene tax prosecution that Arévalo has suffered since entering the second round of elections in 2023.
The big question that Arévalo will have to answer in this sense will be how to fight corruption when the justice system is infiltrated by the same actors it is supposed to prosecute?
“You need prosecutors and judges to prosecute corruption, not those who want to fight it. A number of important elections will take place during the Arévalo government: in October, the Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeal will be renewed. Arévalo will have a lot of influence; he could appoint incorruptible judges. Then it's time to clean the system. In addition, in 2026, the mandate of Attorney General Consuelo Porras will end and Arévalo will have the opportunity to choose a prosecutor who will prosecute corruption cases over the next five years. “These are two golden opportunities, but he needs power in Congress and good popularity so that the population trusts his decisions,” says Godoy.
– More challenges for Arévalo –
Furthermore, Guatemala faces major challenges that need to be addressed urgently. “There are quite high rates of malnutrition; the government estimates there are 90,000 cases of chronic acute malnutrition in children under 5 years of age. Then you also need infrastructure. “In addition, Arévalo has said that he will focus on environmental and environmental issues, he has a pretty green plan,” says Ortiz.
Ortiz adds to this list the extensive work he faces to restore institutionality and places particular emphasis on the urgency of renewing the national infrastructure.
“The democratic setback has been so great that just being able to rebuild this institutional structure is a very big challenge. There are also other challenges in the education and health sectors, namely the two major social debts and the elements that would enable Guatemala to grow economically. Third: infrastructure. “We are a country with a very backward infrastructure,” he commented on Sunday trade.