Vaclav Mašek Sánchez writes in El Faro English on the continuing attempts to subvert democracy in Guatemala by the corrupt compact – El Pacto De Corruptos. The use of U.S. Treasury Magnitsky sanctions and the threat of turning into a pariah state do not seem to bother the elites.
Efforts to overturn the August elections have embroiled Guatemala in the worst political crisis of its already tumultuous postwar era. With the country severely isolated in the hemisphere, democracy must be safeguarded to avoid the social, economic, and migratory consequences reserved for full-fledged pariah states.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office has spuriously alleged voter fraud and fabricated cases against the party that won the presidential election, Movimiento Semilla. Attorney General Consuelo Porras’ repeated attacks against the vote are triggering the most condemnation against Guatemala’s government since at least the 1993 constitutional crisis known as the autogolpe (self-coup) or Serranazo, when former president Jorge Serrano Elías suspended the constitution and dissolved Congress and the Supreme Court before fleeing to Panama.
In an international clarion call to stop the coup efforts, last week the U.S. revoked the visas of two-thirds of Congress, businessmen, and their families, the European Union promised “targeted restrictive measures” against those responsible, and the OAS invoked the Inter-American Charter in calling for yet another emergency mission this year to Guatemala. Yet this seems to be only the beginning of a slippery slope to the international pariah status reached during the scorched-earth military campaigns of the genocidal Lucas García and Ríos Montt governments in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Rising diplomatic tensions with the United States, by far Guatemala’s largest trade partner, and the potential of commercial sanctions from the European Union, have put the ruling coalition at a geopolitical impasse: great power realignment appears impossible, given deep-rooted commitments with Western liberal democracies and the Washington Consensus.
But looking for real or symbolic support beyond Washington or Brussels —whether in Moscow, Beijing, or even Riyadh— is out of the question, unless the ruling coalition agrees to pursue a 180-degree turn in its foreign policy agenda. Under Alejandro Giammattei’s outgoing administration, the most populous Central American nation and largest economy in the isthmus has been waving the flags of Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel. This incoherent position —purporting to support democracy abroad but attempting to subvert it at home— leaves Guatemala in an awkward spot on the world stage.
The geopolitical crossroads derived from the ongoing constitutional crisis pose a fundamental question: are democratic values respected in Guatemala, or is the state’s mask finally off, and the posturing revealed as empty lip service to the international community?
You can read the full piece, with links, here, An Anti-Democratic Mafia Is Isolating Guatemala.
Categories: Corruption, Criminalisation, Guatemala, Human Rights, Impunity, Justice, Presidential Elections, Violence
Guatemala Solidarity Network 
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