This Wednesday, Guatemalan student organizations demonstrated in that nation’s capital, Guatemala City, in protest at an alleged electoral fraud in the elections for the rector of the University of San Carlos (USAC), the only state higher education institute in Central America. .
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During Wednesday’s protest, organized by the University Front to Save USAC, protesters toured the capital’s historic center before reaching the central campus of the state educational institution.
The students rejected the results of the May 14 election, which eventually resulted in Walter Mazariegos being named USAC’s new rector, amid allegations of tampering with the results.
#29y #ElFraudeSeCae
Thousands of University of San Carlos students, teachers and workers are marching from Zone 1 to the campus city in Zone 12 to reject the voter fraud imposed on Walter Mazariegos as rector.It will fall! Mafiariegos will fall! pic.twitter.com/O8KLNmyNZv
— Permanent Assembly to Save USAC (@asambleausac)
June 29, 2022
A statement from the protagonists of the protest said the military and the National Civil Police prevented opposition voters from entering the polling station on May 14, which was the main reason for Mazariegos’ election as rector.
Furthermore, several of the university students denounced that only the Mazariegos list was presented and that the other candidate, current human rights lawyer Jordán Rodas, was not allowed to participate.
In this sense, the university students and social organizations assure that the fraud was committed with impunity and with the complicity of the state authorities, so the rector-elect should not take office and the election should be repeated in compliance with the established canons of the fair.
Likewise, the students argued that this manipulation violated the university’s autonomy, while harshly criticizing the silence of the prosecutors.
Despite the complaints and the general strike the university is undergoing, the USAC rector announced that the Mazariegos swearing-in and inauguration ceremony will be held on July 1st.
Several Guatemalan experts have noted that the appointment of USAC’s rector has political implications for the subsequent election of the Attorney General of the State Department and the judges of the Constitutional Court.