Brian Nichols, the senior official at the State Department for the western hemisphere, called He tweeted that the United States government was “deeply concerned” by what he called “Mr. Curruchiche’s threats to Guatemala’s electoral democracy.” “Institutions must respect the will of the electorate,” Mr Nichols added.
Mr. Arévalo’s party, known as Semilla or Seed, appealed the verdict to Guatemala’s Supreme Constitutional Court, paving the way for a legal battle.
“We have never done anything illegal,” said Samuel Pérez, Semilla’s representative in Congress. told reporters on Wednesday around midnight before the Constitutional Court. “What they are trying to do, as we had warned, is to falsify a case to overthrow the party or Bernardo Arévalo’s candidacy.”
Mr Curruchiche, who heads the special prosecutor’s office against impunity, said the case against Semilla involved allegations that she used more than 5,000 forged signatures to qualify as a political party. After his office investigated, a criminal judge ordered the party’s registration suspended, which could effectively bar her and Mr Arévalo from taking part in the runoff.
On Thursday, Mr Curruchiche’s office searched a government building where documents submitted by Semilla were being held and seized evidence.
Legal experts questioned the move by Mr Curruchiche, an ally of outgoing President Alejandro Giammattei. An independent monitoring group, Mirador Electoral, warned in a statement that the suspension “represents an attempt to stage an electoral coup that amounts to a coup d’etat.”
Constitutional law expert Edgar Ortiz Romero said the move was “absolutely illegal” as only the electoral court and not a criminal judge could suspend a party’s registration under Guatemalan electoral law.