Progressive Bernardo Arévalo, who won Guatemala’s presidential election last Sunday, has denounced the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) for an alleged attempt on his life by “state agents and private individuals,” the lawsuit says. . The 64-year-old congressman and sociologist won the election with an anti-corruption speech supported by 2.4 million voters, 21 percentage points more than his rival, former First Lady Sandra Torres. On election night, a group of prosecutors warned him to take precautionary measures against an alleged gang attack.
Arévalo’s security team had “worrying” information about the alleged plan called “Colosio” on August 15, just five days before the vote. “At least three sources within government institutions have warned with a high degree of reliability of the existence of a plan to end the life of the proposed beneficiary,” they told the IACHR in their Precautionary Measures Request. The plan’s name alludes to Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta, a candidate from Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), who was assassinated in 1994.
The information about the alleged plan to attack Arévalo surfaced on July 4th. The plan was confirmed by multiple independent sources on August 15, according to information the petitioners provided to the IACHR. Neither the party nor the elected authorities have decided on the threat to his life and integrity.
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On August 24, the IACHR granted precautionary measures in favor of Cesar Bernardo Arévalo de León and Karin Herrera Aguilar, who, according to the preliminary results of the Supreme Electoral Court, won the presidential elections “after considering that they were in a grave and grave situation are located.” Urgency of the risk of irreparable harm to their rights in Guatemala.”
Arévalo won the election by a wide margin of 800,000 votes over his challenger, former first lady Sandra Torres Casanova of the National Unity of Hope party. On Sunday evening, as the transmission of the election results progressed, supporters arrived in a caravan at the hotel where Arévalo and his fellow believers were staying. The winner of the vote and his colleagues from the Seed movement greeted the audience from the hotel terrace and thanked the 2.4 million Guatemalans who supported them for their vote. Arevalo, who rallied thousands of supporters on August 16 to conclude his campaign in the Plaza de la Constitución, refrained from accompanying the crowd waiting for him in the Plaza Obelisco in the Guatemalan capital to celebrate the victory.
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Bernardo Arévalo and Karin Herrera pose victoriously in front of photographers at a press conference last Sunday. PILAR OLIVARES (Portal)
Members of his party told EL PAÍS that for security reasons he decided not to go out, although he went to a hotel balcony where he continued counting the votes to greet his supporters and thank them with a megaphone. The President-elect said at a press conference that evening that he would announce the location and time for the relevant ceremony, but a ceremony scheduled for the afternoon of August 22 was canceled this morning.
The reports that Arévalo’s team submitted to the IACHR, and for which precautionary measures were granted by that agency, said that the state ministry had learned of a suspected gang attack plan. During the celebration of the press conference held by Arévalo and Herrera at the Hotel Las Américas in Guatemala City on Saturday night, four prosecutors from the Public Ministry arrived, requesting a private meeting with the President-elect to indicate that they had “privileged information”. decreed linked to gangs that “could endanger the life and physical integrity of the victor” and they felt it appropriate to inform him so that “such security measures as he deems appropriate could be taken”.
In addition to informing the security team, prosecutors have also notified the General Directorate of the National Civil Police, in accordance with the IACHR resolution authorizing the measures in favor of the Seed Movement couple. It is expected that the ballot review hearings will end on August 24 and that the Supreme Electoral Court will officially announce the results and award the positions of President and Vice President of Guatemala in the next few days.
Arevalo, the anti-system
Arévalo is a sociologist born in Montevideo, Uruguay, during the exile of his father, Juan José Arévalo Bermejo, who ruled Guatemala between 1945 and 1951 and is considered “the best president of Guatemala”. Arevalo has made it clear that he proudly carries his father’s legacy, but also acknowledges that he must forge his own path. In January, he will end his first term as deputy for the Seed Movement, a party formed in the heat of popular protests against the grave cases of corruption identified by the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) in 2015.
The Seed movement candidate won the elections with a speech in which he rejected corruption without investing large sums of money in the election campaign or in the patronage practices common in Guatemalan politics. Since moving into the second round, he and his party have faced court harassment over a case of allegedly forging signatures establishing the party.
There is a sense of struggle and courage within the party in the face of overtures by the prosecutor in charge of Consuelo Porras, who has been labeled a corrupt and anti-democratic actor by the United States for the actions she has taken against judges Prosecutors and journalists who denounced acts of corruption.
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