General elections were held in Guatemala on June 25. In a surprising result, the August 20 presidential runoff was decided between Sandra Torres (Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza) and Bernardo Arévalo (Movimiento Semilla), ignoring the traditional parties. The OAS and European Union election observation missions said the day had passed satisfactorily and called for the will of majorities to be respected. Legal action has been taken since July 1 to recount the votes and suspend the publication of the results. Election Observation Missions expressed concern about the use of the judiciary to invalidate the election. Then the President of the Supreme Court announced a renewed suspension of the official publication of the results, a court whose judges will remain in office for four years after their term has already expired, since the Congress of the Republic has rejected a judgment of the Constitutional Court from the descendants in 2019.
On July 10, the Supreme Court surprised while respecting the institutional framework, indicating that the electoral court had complied with the order of the Constitutional Court and the results of the first round could finally be officially announced.
On July 12, when it was believed that everything was going back to legal, the Seventh Circuit Judge ordered the suspension of the seed movement’s legal status, minutes before the Supreme Electoral Court officially announced the results. This attempt to prevent the party from participating in the elections was promoted by the Public Ministry, headed by Attorney General Consuelo Porras, and carried out by the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity (FECI), headed by Prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche. It should be noted that officers Porras and Curruchiche are being sanctioned by the United States for conducting criminalization cases against exiled prosecutors and jailed journalist José Rubén Zamora.
This entire process explains how co-opted institutions work in Guatemala. International bodies such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) or the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) have denounced serious setbacks in the fight against impunity and corruption, due to the intensification of attacks and interference with human rights violations against independence of those bodies which, since the departure of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) from the country, have distinguished themselves for their independent and impartial work on the matter, such as: the Constitutional Court (CC), the Prosecutor’s Office Special Against Impunity (FECI ) and the courts with criminal jurisdiction in higher-risk cases. There has been an intensification of prosecution, criminalization and abuse of the pre-trial process to intimidate and remove from office judicial officers charged with investigating and prosecuting cases related to the internal armed conflict and committing serious crimes or Large-scale corruption to favor power structures and groups interested in impunity.
There has been a process of weakening the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity (FECI) and other State Ministry units responsible for investigating corruption and transitional justice cases through the transfer, criminalization or arbitrary removal of their officers, including professional prosecutors. According to the IACHR, more than 30 judicial officials have fled the country during the current government after denouncing being persecuted for their judicial work. At the same time, dozens of transitional justice or corruption-related cases involving senior government officials have suffered lack of progress or serious setbacks.
In this context, a climate of censorship and intense judicialization of other people who play a relevant role in public life and contribute to the democratic debate in Guatemala, particularly human rights defenders and media figures, such as the arrest and criminalization of José Rubén Zamora, President of El Periodico.
Unfortunately, what is happening in Guatemala is not an isolated case. It is enough to see President Bukele’s announcements that he will stand for re-election or the very serious situation in Nicaragua. Therefore we must not forget Guatemala. The election process continues. We must continue to alert the international community that recent events are jeopardizing one of the cornerstones of democracy: respect for the will of the people as expressed in elections. The voices of the EU EOM or the OEA EOM or Argentina, Brazil, Chile, the United States and European countries are not enough. Clearer and more emphatic voices must come together.
In her book The Twilight of Democracy, Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Applebaum points out that the demise of democracy is not inevitable, but neither is the survival of democracy. It depends on the choices we make. In a region with so many unresolved conflicts and so many looming injustices like ours, we need to care about democratic pluralism, broad debate on public affairs in a respectful context, free from threats and harassment, and respect for the rule of law. This poses a major challenge for the future of the region, as a collective responsibility, as we observe that some countries in the region limit the exercise of public liberties, try to retain power, severely punish dissent or opposition, Repress and repress They persecute the independent or opposition press and even consider demonstrations of religious liberty or in defense of human rights threatening and illegal.
The weakening of democracy is no longer the result of violent interventions, civil wars and coups. The greatest threat facing democracies today is the gradual erosion of their institutions through the use of the mechanisms inherent in democracies for wholly undemocratic purposes. That’s what the world is watching in Guatemala.
Antonia Urrejolaformer foreign minister of Chile