Yuliana Ramazzini writes in El Faro English of the fracturing of Movimiento Semilla, the party of Bernardo Arévalo, and talks with Social anthropologist Irma Alicia Velásquez Nimatuj, a Maya K’iche’ social anthropologist who participated more than a decade ago in the founding of Semilla.

When Samuel Pérez, the highest-profile congressman from Movimiento Semilla, Guatemala’s ruling party, announced in late May an initiative to form a new party called Raíces, it became apparent that the small party that had brought Bernardo Arévalo to the presidency in 2023 has split in two: between those close to the president and those close to Pérez. Since inauguration in January 2024, Semilla’s legal incorporation has been cancelled in a lengthy saga of judicial harassment stemming from the electoral process; Pérez stated that Raíces is a bid to “refound” the former party. But eight of his fellow Semilla legislators —out of a group of two-dozen— refused to join, claiming he had made the decision without consulting them or the “party bases”.

One factor in the split is the pressure cooker of prosecution of members of the party; the U.N. Special Rapporteur for the Independence of Judges, who, in a visit to Guatemala in late May, has denounced “consistent and alarming criminalization.” Social anthropologist Irma Alicia Velásquez Nimatuj, a Maya K’iche’ professor who participated more than a decade ago in the founding of Semilla, says in this interview with El Faro English that party members “see few ways to keep Semilla going, and that led to the new formation of Raíces, but it is also part of the fragmentation that Semilla has faced, due to a lack of leadership and organic work.”

Velásquez Nimatuj, who has taught at U.S. universities such as Brown, Duke, and Stanford, sees shared responsibility on both sides of the rift: She emphasizes that what she calls a lack of involvement of Indigenous peoples has led to President Arévalo’s “political inability to assume the power given to him by the people.” This criticism contrasts with the statements of some Maya authorities who reached early agreements with the administration and express optimism for a government of profound, if slow, change.

Regarding the new group led by Pérez, she observes that his “energetic activism is surpassing that of the president,” while warning that “if he [Pérez] wants to be a caudillo, it will be a problem and his political life will be very short.” She cites one of the party’s founding intellectuals, Edelberto Torres Rivas: “Political parties in Central America have a short life. It is deeply saddening to know that his words came true for the project he put his heart and soul into.”

You can read the full article, with links and photos, here, “It saddens me that Semilla has been unable to uphold the party’s values”.

Categories: Corruption, Criminalisation, Criminalization, Guatemala, Impunity, Indigenous peoples, Justice, Presidential Elections

Tags: Bernardo Arévalo, El Faro, El Faro English, Irma Alicia Velásquez Nimatuj, Movimiento Semilla, Raíces, Samuel Pérez Álvarez, Semilla, Yuliana Ramazzini