Filmmaker Judy Jackson writes in Latin America Bureau (LAB) on the recent elections and talks about the rise of Movimiento Semilla and the increasing use of lawfare against anti-corruption initiatives.
Powerful politicians in Guatemala overlooked one tiny centre-left party when they used spurious charges to eliminate several parties from the June 25 election race. Everyone was surprised when the little Semilla (Seed) party, led by Presidential candidate Bernardo Arévalo, pulled off a massive upset by advancing to the runoff, and then, with its offer of ‘a new Guatemalan Spring’, won a landslide victory against the UNE party of Sandra Torres on August 20. Millions of long-dispossessed, impoverished Guatemalans, many of them Indigenous Maya, took to the streets in an explosion of joy.
However, Guatemala’s political elites were much less thrilled. Perhaps that’s because Semilla’s stated aim is to crack down on corruption. The country’s political and economic elites have been infiltrated by some of Guatemala’s shadiest figures, collectively known as the ‘Pacto de Corruptos.’ They’ve long controlled most state institutions and benefitted by demanding bribes from those investing in Guatemala’s exploitative economy. (They’ve helped mining companies remove Indigenous people from their land, provided soldiers as guards to protect mining concessions, offered generous tax concessions to those involved in tourism, hydroelectric dams, or maquiladora sweatshops.) In response to Semilla’s landslide win, plans were quickly hatched by those in power to use the courts to prevent the Semilla party from entering government in January 2024.
You can read the full piece with links and photos, here, Guatemala’s president-elect warns of a coup.
Categories: Corruption, Criminalisation, Guatemala, Human Rights, Impunity, Justice, Presidential Elections, Solidarity in Action, Violence
Guatemala Solidarity Network 
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