After a long and bumpy ride, Bernardo Arévalo has been sworn in as Guatemala’s president. A political outsider leading a new party born out of anti-corruption protests, Arévalo now faces the enormous task of dismantling the dense web of corruption and impunity that has disfigured Guatemalan democracy. He has vowed to strip corrupt elites of their privileges, and they’re bound to put up a fight. Those who mobilised to see off attempts to prevent Arévalo’s inauguration shouldn’t lower their guard. Along with the international community, they should give Arévalo every chance to succeed.

Guatemala’s new president, Bernardo Arévalo, was expected to be sworn in on 14 January at 2pm –the 14th at 14:00, as the many Guatemalans who hoped for change repeated in anticipation for months. It was a momentous event – but it wasn’t guaranteed to happen.

One year earlier, Arévalo – co-founder of the progressive Movimiento Semilla (Seed Movement), a political party born out of widespread 2015 anti-corruption protests – was a largely unknown congressional representative, freshly selected as his party’s presidential candidate. As far as opinion polls were concerned, he wasn’t on the radar. A long chain of unlikely events later, he’s become the first Guatemalan president in living memory who doesn’t belong to the self-serving elites who Guatemalans call ‘the corrupt pact’, which he has credibly promised to dismantle.

The fear this caused among beneficiaries of the authoritarian kleptocracy that has long ruled Guatemala was reflected in a series of attempts to try to stop Arévalo’s inauguration. The huge and sustained mobilisation that came in response can largely be credited with keeping alive the spark of democracy in Guatemala.

Last-minute delays

All the Guatemalan Congress needed to do on the morning of 14 January was certify its newly elected members so the body could then swear in the new president. But this routine administrative procedure was dragged on for many hours. On the basis that Semilla, under judicial assault since it emerged the runner-up in the 25 June first round, had been arbitrarily suspended, there were attempts to have its 23 representatives declared as independents instead of part of a bloc, which would have excluded them from congressional positions of authority.

By law, the new Congress was supposed to be in place before the end of the day. As politicians dragged their feet and the hours progressed, people gathered outside started to get angry. The Indigenous movement, at the forefront of the months-long protests that had successfully kept at bay successive attempts to reverse the election results, called on Indigenous communities throughout Guatemala to remain on the alert until the inauguration proceeded.

The presence of international guests, normally part of a ritual of no consequence, also proved vital. By late afternoon the Secretary General of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, surrounded by members of numerous foreign delegations, read a declaration calling on the Guatemalan Congress to hand over power, ‘as required by the Constitution’, to the president-elect. This signalled that the world was watching.

As tensions mounted, Semilla reached an agreement for one of its representatives to be elected as president of Congress. This allowed the certification process to resume, and Arévalo was finally sworn in shortly after midnight. Night-long celebrations followed.

A coup attempt in stages

Arévalo’s election was unexpected. He only made it into the 20 August runoff because several other contenders not to the elite’s liking were disqualified ahead of the first round. His candidacy wasn’t blocked because he scored so poorly in the polls. People’s expectations were extremely low, and first place went to invalid votes.

But once Arévalo entered the runoff, his rise was unstoppable. Death threats soon poured in, and an assassination plot involving state and non-state forces came to light days before the runoff. To protect the candidates, on 24 August the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights granted precautionary measures to Arévalo and his running mate, Karin Herrera.

As soon as the first-round results were announced, nine parties submitted complaints about supposed ‘irregularities’ that had notably gone undetected by all international observers. Their supporters converged outside the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) calling for a rerun.

The Constitutional Court instead ordered a recount and instructed the TSE to suspend official certification of results until complaints were resolved. Following the recount, the TSE eventually endorsed the results two weeks later, on 12 July.

But meanwhile, Attorney General Consuelo Porras Argueta, an official under US sanctions for corruption, launched an investigation into Semilla for alleged irregularities in its registration process and had its offices raided. She also ordered two raids on TSE offices, and when the TSE officially announced Arévalo as one of the runoff contenders, she ordered Semilla’s suspension. The Constitutional Court however blocked this order and the runoff ran its course. Arévalo took 58 per cent of the vote, compared to 37.2 per cent for the pro-establishment candidate.

Efforts to stop Arévalo’s inauguration began right away, with yet another attempt by the Public Prosecutor to have Semilla suspended. The Constitutional Court continued to receive and reject legal challenges until the very day of the inauguration.

For 100 days, two different visions of Guatemala wrestled with each other: people eager for change mobilised and protested nonstop while corrupt forces linked to organised crime strove to preserve their privileges at any cost. Seemingly to prevent them being targeted, Arévalo only announced his future cabinet members when his inauguration was less than a week away.

Voices from the frontline

Jorge Santos is General Coordinator of the Guatemalan Human Rights Defenders Protection Unit, a civil society organisation dedicated to documenting, verifying and recording attacks against human rights defenders in Guatemala.

 

Disregard for the will of the people expressed at the ballot box is the greatest possible insult to democracy. In the face of this, people have mobilised. Starting on 2 October, a national strike was called for an indefinite period of time to demand respect for the will of the people. 9 January marked the 100th day of peaceful resistance, led by Indigenous peoples, in defence of democracy.

The protests called by the ancestral authorities of Indigenous peoples have been joined by numerous spontaneous expressions of citizen mobilisation. In the past, the urban and mestizo – mixed ancestry – middle classes opposed mobilisation by Indigenous peoples. This time, however, the protests led by Indigenous peoples have been supported and legitimised by broad segments of society. This broke with a long tradition of prejudice and racial discrimination by urban and mestizo society towards Indigenous peoples, and resulted in massive and widespread demonstrations throughout the country.

The protests succeeded in bringing together the 23 peoples that make up Guatemala. Broad segments of society carried out road blockades at the country’s main transit points. Passage of vehicles transporting food or providing medical services was not obstructed, as protesters cleared the way for them.

The blockades were an unprecedented demonstration of citizen joy. People rediscovered and recovered public spaces, danced on blocked streets and organised football games, yoga and chess classes on occupied spaces.

A key characteristic of the protests was their peaceful character. In the face of provocations by external forces and the national police, people responded with non-violent actions. For 100 days they held a rally in front of the headquarters of the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The protesters did not leave their place and continued to demand the resignation of the attorney general for her repeated attempts to annul Bernardo Arévalo’s presidential victory.

 

This is an edited extract of our conversation with Jorge. Read the full interview here.

Democracy on life support

Guatemala has long been classified as a ‘hybrid regime‘, characterised by a mix of democratic and authoritarian traits. Under outgoing president Alejandro Giammattei, civic freedoms steadily deteriorated, as did the situation of people defending human rights on the ground. State institutions grew even weaker, ransacked by predatory elites and coopted by organised crime.

One of the last acts of Giammattei’s predecessor and ally, Jimmy Morales, was to put an end to the 12-year work of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). Charged with supporting the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the police and other state institutions to investigate and prosecute serious crimes, and strengthening them to confront illegal groups and organised crime, CICIG helped file over 120 cases in the Guatemalan justice system, implicating more than 1,540 people, with around 660 facing charges – among them 200 government officials, including former presidents, members of congress, ministers and judges. Its joint investigations with the Attorney General’s Office led to more than 400 convictions.

Under Giammattei, the Attorney General’s Office dismantled all anti-corruption efforts and criminalised those in the legal profession, such as judges and lawyers, who’d worked with CICIG. It investigated, detained, convicted and forced them into exile.

Impunity flourished further. Transparency International’s 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index found evidence of strong influence by organised crime over politics and politicians, with some crime bosses seeking and securing office.

It’s no wonder that Guatemalans’ trust in state institutions hit rock bottom. According to the latest Latinobarómetro report, in 2021 satisfaction with the performance of democracy stood at a meagre 25 per cent. Barely 20 per cent of Guatemalans thought the distribution of wealth was fair, and a similarly low percentage believed the country was ruled for the benefit of all rather than just elites. Only 37 per cent believed democracy was preferable to all other alternatives. Figures like these show the scale of the task ahead for Arévalo.

The challenges ahead

Arévalo came to the presidency on a credible anti-corruption platform. On the campaign trail, he acknowledged that corruption and impunity have fuelled inequalities, cementing the privileges of a few while normalising the violation of the rights of the majority. His rise created enormous expectations among historically excluded Indigenous peoples, civil society and young people, all of whom mobilised in numbers to make sure democracy prevailed.

But dismantling dense webs of complicity, rooting out entrenched corruption and rebuilding state institutions are no easy tasks.

Among the many challenges is a highly fragmented Congress in which 16 parties are represented, with Semilla on only 23 out of 160 seats. A large majority of Congress remains on the payroll of the interests Arévalo has promised to take on, along with most of the justice system. The 14 January events made clear that the ‘corrupt pact’ will keep trying to prevent Arévalo from governing. And they’ll try to topple him given the chance.

On 16 January, President Arévalo and Vice-President Herrera held an unofficial inauguration: a Mayan ceremony organised by ancestral authorities at the Kaminaljuyú archaeological site. Following the event, Arévalo spoke with the media and confirmed his first measures would be in response to demands expressed by the many who mobilised to defend democracy.

The list is long, ranging from reducing political spending and improving social services to reversing laws that criminalise protest and establishing an effective protection mechanism for human rights defenders. At the top is forcing the resignation of Attorney General Consuelo Porras, the highest official presiding over a judicial network set up to ensure the impunity of the ‘corrupt pact’.

Arévalo can’t remove the Attorney General unilaterally, and so will have to negotiate her departure. This will be a key early test of the hope invested in him to keep democracy alive. Many more are sure to come.

OUR CALLS FOR ACTION

  • The new government must commit to working with civil society, starting by reversing criminalising legislation and implementing long-overdue measures to ensure the safety of activists on the ground.
  • Guatemalan civil society must engage constructively with the new administration, keeping up the pressure for change while mobilising to fend off regressive backlash.
  • The international community must encourage and support the resumption of anti-corruption efforts in Guatemala.

Cover photo by Emmanuel Andres/AFP via Getty Images