Tim May writes in Labour Hub on the challenges facing Bernardo Arévalo as president of Guatemala in following his father’s footsteps.
On June 27th 1954 the Guatemalan Revolution was nipped in the bud by a US-orchestrated coup d’état. During this so-called ‘10 years of Spring’, the Revolution’s two successive socialist Presidents did much to address the country’s colonial structural inequalities, entrenched since the Spanish Invasion. The coup reversed these gains and set Guatemala on a dark road of instability and genocidal violence against the country’s oppressed Indigenous majority. 70 years later, Bernardo Arévalo, son of the Revolution’s first President, won the Presidential elections, defying expectations and the establishment’s blatant attempts to subvert democracy. Five months after his inauguration, it’s unclear whether his will alone is enough to loosen the elite’s grip on power and make good on his father’s revolutionary promise of a Guatemala for all Guatemalans.
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It is no easy task to undo the years of entrenched corruption in the country’s public institutions. Mirroring the situation in other ‘second pink tide’ countries in Latin America like Peru and Colombia, Arévalo faces a hostile Constitutional Court and Congress. The gains of these new left wing governments have been somewhat muted due to a variety of factors. Firstly, their victories were attained more through dissatisfaction with the status quo than the popularity of leftist ideologies, giving them less scope for policy reversal than their first wave predecessors. Whereas the first wave benefited from legislative majorities, which enabled the speedy passage of ambitious bills, the second wave’s governments are weaker, and also face a rejuvenated right wing.
You can read the full piece with links, here, Can Arévalo deliver his father’s revolutionary promise?
Categories: Corruption, Guatemala, Human Rights, Impunity, Presidential Elections, Solidarity in Action
Guatemala Solidarity Network 
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