The elected president of Guatemala Bernardo Arévalo had denounced the disqualification of his political party, obtained by the prosecution and criticized by the EU and the United States, as a project of “coup d’etat”. But on Sunday the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) temporarily lifted it.
“The resolution (…) issued by the Director of the Citizens Registry is suspended until the conclusion of the electoral process” on October 31, ordered the TSE in a resolution read Sunday by its spokesman, Luis Gerardo Ramirez.
“It is neither reasonable nor prudent to expose the validity of political organizations (…) until the electoral process is completed”, adds the resolution of the TSE which called for “respect for the popular will expressed at the ballot box”.
The Directorate of the Citizens Register depends on the TSE but operates autonomously. If the TSE has already validated the victory of Mr. Arévalo, the elected president must still, among other formalities, receive his credentials before the end of the electoral process.
This is only one step in the legal battle initiated against the Semilla party by the public prosecutor, who at the beginning of the week had obtained from the management of the Register of Citizens, at the request of a judge, its provisional suspension.
A decision strongly criticized by the United States but also by the EU which denounced “the persistent attempts to undermine the results of the elections by selective and arbitrary legal and procedural actions”.
In Washington, the head of the electoral mission of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Guatemala, Eladio Loizaga, also warned on Friday against a possible “rupture of the constitutional order in Guatemala”.
If the loss of the legal status of the Semilla party, at the head of which Mr. Arévalo won the presidential election of August 20 hands down on a promise to fight against corruption, could not prevent his investiture on January 14, it did however limit the action of its 23 new deputies in Parliament: chairmanship of committees, fundraising, registration of new members.
The president-elect had denounced Friday “a coup d’etat promoted by the institutions which should guarantee justice in our country”.
Judge Fredy Orellana had ordered the TSE, at the request of prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche, to suspend the party and investigate alleged anomalies concerning the registration of members during its formation in 2017. Mr. Arévalo also questioned the Attorney General Consuelo Porras
Mrs. Porras and MM. Orellana and Curruchiche are on a US list of “corrupt” actors.
On Saturday, the prosecution defended itself from these accusations: “It is totally false (to say) that the public prosecutor is participating in a coup process as the elected president did irresponsibly”, he said. he said in a statement.
“The TSE’s decision to end the suspension of our party brings serenity to this crucial moment in history, when democracy is fighting its best battle, supported by the honest and upright people of this country,” he told AFP. AFP Nino Matute, member of Semilla and city councilor in the capital.
According to the deputy of Semilla, Raul Barrera, “even if its effects are only temporary, this resolution has great value”. “The Plenary Assembly of TSE Magistrates expressly requests (…) to guarantee the transfer of power to elected officials”, he wrote on the social network X (ex-Twitter).
Prosecutors Porras and Curruchiche are also leading an internationally criticized crusade against judges, prosecutors and journalists who have fought corruption in the country.
Guatemala is stuck in a spiral of poverty, violence and corruption, evils that push thousands of Guatemalans to emigrate each year, especially to the United States.
The election of Mr. Arévalo, a 64-year-old sociologist and social democrat MP, ends a 12-year cycle of right-wing governments in one of the 30 most corrupt countries in the world according to the NGO Transparency International
03/09/2023 21:20:11 – Guatemala (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
