The Guatemalan justice system suspended this Thursday the party of elected President Bernardo Arévalo, the Semilla Movement. The Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) responded five years ago to a request from criminal judge Fredy Orellana, who was investigating alleged “anomalies in the formation process” of the group. The attack on the party of the elected president is possible after the TSE ended the electoral period on October 31, during which no legal action was possible against the party of the winner of the parliamentary elections on August 20.
On July 12, the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity (FECI) ordered the suspension of the Semilla movement, another attempt to derail the political party that surprised in the first round of voting and won the second with its candidate Bernardo Arévalo. On the same day, prosecutors confiscated the boxes containing the election results. Fearing legal prosecution of the Semilla movement and the integrity of the election results, 48 cantons of Totonicapán, the Alliance for Reforms, the National Convergence of Resistance and some political parties, as well as other civil society actors, called on the TSE to extend the deadline until the elections 15. January. However, they were not listened to.
The order suspending the Semilla movement was made official by the TSE Register of Citizens. However, the electoral body stressed that this suspension of the political party that won the presidency “cannot reverse the results that gave Arévalo the victory” nor can it cancel the 23 deputies won by the Semilla movement.
Demonstrators greet Arévalo during the commemoration of the October 1944 Revolution on the 20th of last month. Santiago Billy (AP)
Arévalo insists: “Coup d’etat”
The Semilla Movement spokesman said they had not yet been informed of their party’s suspension. However, President-elect Bernardo Arévalo accused Attorney General Consuelo Porras and Judge Orellana of attempting a “coup” to prevent him from taking office on January 14.
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“We call on the public ministry and the judiciary to stop all measures to circumvent the opinion of the people who expressed themselves freely in the elections,” Arévalo said during a press conference in Guatemala City. “The results are final and unchangeable (…) However, Guatemalans must be ready to defend the results against the legal and spurious attack of the Public Ministry if it continues to occur.”
The legal action by Porras and the judges has led to massive protests and roadblocks by the population to demand their resignation and a cleanup of the justice system. It was the indigenous movements that led the popular mobilizations and a nationwide strike. This Wednesday, the indigenous leadership insisted that it would remain in “resistance” against the prosecution.
The organizations announced that they will hold several marches in central Guatemala City on November 3rd and 4th, in addition to continuing the sit-in they have been holding in front of the prosecutor’s office since October 2nd. “This is a fight for democracy, for the well-being of the people of Guatemala, waiting for our decision to elect our officials to be respected,” said Luis Pacheco, president of the indigenous organization 48 Cantons of Totonicapán. “We continue the peaceful resistance and come only to defend democracy.”
Pacheco said that in addition to various indigenous communities, they are also supported by “various sectors” such as “markets in Guatemala City and civil society.”
The United States is canceling visas
Aside from the events in Guatemala, the United States government imposed travel restrictions on 14 people and their immediate families for “undermining democracy and the rule of law” in that Central American country. The Foreign Ministry did not name those affected, but diplomatic sources assured EL PAÍS that among them were several State Ministry officials.
Bernardo Arévalo with U.S. Secretary of State official Brian A. Nichols in Guatemala City on October 24.US EMBASSY GUATEMALA (via Portal)
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller stressed that the United States “rejects continued efforts to undermine the peaceful transfer of power in Guatemala to President-elect Bernardo Arévalo.” The Washington official emphasized that the prosecutor’s office, among other things, confiscated election materials that were in the custody of the TSE or called for the forcible evacuation of peaceful demonstrators.
This “undemocratic behavior undermines Guatemala’s democratic institutions and contradicts the principles of the Inter-American Democratic Charter,” Miller emphasized.
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