Critics fear President-elect Bernardo Arevalo could be blocked from taking office amid a probe into university protests.

Jeff Abbott writes in Al Jazeera about the current attempts by the Guatemala state to block the anti-corruption president-elect, Bernardo Arévalo, from taking office in January and why the University of San Carlos (USAC) is being drawn into its web of corruption.

Blockades were set up around campus. Banners were unfurled. And key buildings at the University of San Carlos (USAC), Guatemala’s sole public university, came under student occupation.

It was 2022, and the campus was in uproar over the election of a new rector, Walter Mazariegos, to lead the school.

Critics, including the United States State Department, had denounced the selection process as “fraudulent”. Among those raising their voices in outrage was a member of Guatemala’s Congress, little known outside his country at the time.

But now, the dark-horse progressive Bernardo Arevalo has rocketed into the international spotlight as Guatemala’s president-elect — and his statements about the protests are at the centre of a new controversy erupting in the country.

On November 17, prosecutors filed a request to strip Arevalo and his running mate Karin Herrera of their political immunity for supporting the student protests on social media.

Human rights advocates and observers have warned that the request is the latest attempt to derail Arevalo’s presidency, as the political establishment reels from his surprise victory in August’s election.

You can read the full piece, with photos and links, here, What’s behind efforts to strip Guatemala’s president-elect of his immunity?

Categories: Corruption, Criminalisation, Guatemala, Human Rights, Impunity, Justice, Presidential Elections

Tags: Al Jazeera, Bernardo Arévalo, Jeff Abbott, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala (USAC), USAC