Guatemala
Inauguration of President Prevails over Coup Attempts
Shortly after midnight on January 15, Bernardo Arévalo de Léon, the candidate of the Seed Movement (Semilla), was inaugurated as President of Guatemala. The inauguration took place despite repeated legalistic manoevres to block him from taking office ever since he and Karin Herrera, his vice presidential running mate, won the presidential runoff election on August 20, 2023 with 58.05 per cent of the vote, defeating Sandra Torres of the National Unity of Hope party (UNE). The runoff followed general elections on June 25, 2023, in which votes were also cast for all 160 seats in Congress, all 20 members of the Central American Parliament, and mayors and councils for all the country's 340 municipalities. Outgoing President Alejandro Giammattei of the party Vamos was constitutionally prohibited from running for a second term, although his party won a majority in Congress.
People gather to celebrate swearing in of
new Guatemalan President, January 15, 2024.
"It fills me with deep honour to assume this lofty responsibility, showing that our democracy has the necessary strength to resist and that through unity and trust we can change the political panorama in Guatemala," Arévalo said in his first address as president.
Arévalo thanked Guatemala's youth for not losing hope and the country's Indigenous Peoples for their support, acknowledging "historic debts that we must resolve." He summarized his administration's guiding principle as: "There cannot be democracy without social justice and social justice cannot prevail without democracy."
These remarks acknowledged the Guatemalan people's longstanding desire for political change, including ending the corruption and domination by the ruling elites, which ultimately resulted in Arévalo's election as an alternative to the candidates of the other parties. They also allude to the repeated attempts to use lawfare to prevent his inauguration.
Prensa Latina, in a December 25, 2023 report, noted that "Guatemalans were facing, in general, the most atypical elections since the democratic period of 1985, with candidates openly related to organized crime and drug trafficking."
Lawfare manoevres to block Arévalo from taking office included trying to get the election results thrown out and other actions led by Attorney General Consuelo Porras. Opposition from the people led to 20 consecutive days of protests, including nation-wide strikes and blocking of strategic highways in October.
Most recently, on January 12, Indigenous organizations called for a massive march in response to the threats of a coup d'état through which Attorney General Porras intended to prevent Arevalo's inauguration.
The day before, Supreme Court ruled against the arrest of Vice President-elect Karin Herrera and four judges of the Electoral Court, again on the basis of spurious claims of electoral fraud. However, the Prosecutor's Office did manage to arrest former Interior Minister Napoleon Barrientos, whom Porras accuses of not complying with a ruling that ordered him to repress citizens in the protests that proliferated in the country during the second half of 2023.
This article was published in
Volume 54 Number 13 - February 23, 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/MS541317.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca