After almost nine months in office, Bernardo Arévalo’s decisions regarding his cabinet have shown that they did not really expect to govern.
Yuliana Ramazzini writes in El Faro English on the difficulties that the government of Bernardo Arévalo continues to face in being able to govern and enact policies. It is clear that the Pacto De Corruptos are doing everything in their power to block any attempt to weaken their hold on the country while the weakness of Arévalo’s government to tackle the corrupt elites becomes increasingly apparent.
“This party was not prepared to govern,” opens sociologist and political analyst Gustavo Berganza. Over a year ago, back in June 2023, Bernardo Arévalo and his social-democrat Semilla party were just as stunned as anyone when he qualified for the runoff election after trailing, days earlier, in eighth place in the polls. It was the first time they ran candidates for both president and VP; everything that came with this victory was as new to them as they were to the electorate.
What followed was even less expected: The Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) tried for months to, first, stop the runoff election from being held and, when that failed, prevent Arévalo from being sworn-in. “The party had to defend itself,” Berganza notes, “filing appeals and reviewing papers from headquarters so that there would be no searches, to the point that they were unable to prepare the cabinet to govern.”
Attorney General Consuelo Porras is ever on the offensive. Two weeks ago, she asked the Constitutional Court to allow her to prosecute Arévalo and remove four top officials, including the secretaries of the Presidency and Social Communications — despite the obvious fact that any such action would require Congress to revoke their immunity.
In an op-ed for El Faro English, Guatemalan journalist Álvaro Montenegro wrote that the attorney general’s “goals are not legal but political.” He added, “She presents herself as Arévalo’s opponent and uses the machinery of the Public Prosecutor’s Office to keep the president in check and sow a national climate of anxiety.”
On Monday, Ligia Hernández, a former Semilla legislator and current Director of the Institute for Victims, was arrested on allegations of unregistered electoral financing, as part of an internationally denounced investigation launched last year, after the first round of voting, into Semilla’s accounting and legal incorporation.
María del Carmen Aceña, researcher at the Center for National Economic Investigations (CIEN), agrees that Porras has to a degree hamstrung the administration: “Due to the [small] size of the party and the persecution by the MP, they were busy [last year] trying to defend themselves instead of creating a plan and teaming up with experienced people who could match their principles.“
You can read the full article with links and photos, here, Inexperience, Lawfare, and Online Image Sway Arévalo’s Decisions. You can also find a link to the Spanish original.
Categories: Corruption, Criminalisation, Guatemala, Impunity, Justice, Presidential Elections
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