The list of serious contenders for power continues to shrink in Guatemala. One month before the first round of the presidential election, the last to be dismissed from the race is Carlos Pineda (right), whose candidacy was “suspended” on Friday, May 26, by the courts and the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) in the request of a competing party which invoked irregularities in the procedure.
“Corruption won, Guatemala lost”, commented on his Twitter account the one who was the favorite of the polls, after the judgment of the Constitutional Court which considered his appeal “without object”. This judgment should become final in the coming days. The ousted candidate then joined dozens of his supporters demonstrating outside the court’s headquarters.
The 51-year-old businessman was placed in the lead in the latest poll published by the daily Prensa Libre, with 23.1% of the voting intentions, ahead of the 67-year-old Social Democrat and former first lady Sandra Torres ( 19.5%), former UN official Edmond Mulet, 72 (center, 10.1%), and Zury Rios, the 55-year-old daughter of a former dictator (conservative right, 9.2 %).
In total, twenty-two candidates remain in the running for the presidential election. This number, usual in Guatemala, virtually prevents any chance of election in the first round, on June 25, since the winner must obtain more than half of the votes. The second round is scheduled for August 20.
Candidates co-opted by the ruling elites
Before Mr. Pineda, the TSE had already eliminated two serious candidates: Thelma Cabrera (left, 52), from the Mayan indigenous peoples who constitute at least 40% of the population, and Roberto Arzu (right, 53), son of former President Alvaro Arzu, in power from 1996 to 2000.
“Unfortunately there aren’t enough of us to change the course of this country,” Pineda tweeted, thanking his supporters and encouraging them to “fight, participate and get [in] the problems of the nation”.
Guatemala’s 9.3 million voters will be called upon to appoint a successor to right-wing president Alejandro Giammattei, 67, for a single four-year term. The latter, who had promised during his election “not to be another son of a bitch”, left office with 75% of unfavorable opinions, according to another poll published by Prensa Libre.
For analysts and ousted figures, there is no doubt that the “fraud” lies not in manipulating the election results, but in taxing candidates co-opted by the ruling elites. The eviction of candidates by the courts puts “in danger (…) the rule of law, democracy, guarantees and freedoms of the entire population”, denounces, to Agence France-Presse (AFP), Edie Cux, director of Citizen Action, the local branch of the anti-corruption NGO Transparency International. “There is a preconceived pattern for [nominating] candidates, discarding those who are inconvenient and keeping those who are favored by the system,” he explains.
The state is using “the judicial structure” to commit a new form of “voter fraud” by excluding candidates, adds Jordan Rodas. He himself, who was running for Ms Cabrera’s vice-presidency, was ousted on corruption charges and all of his appeals were dismissed.
“We see the president moving his pawns”
For many analysts, the country has been experiencing a democratic setback since the early termination of the UN anti-corruption mission CICIG in 2019, on the orders of former President Jimmy Morales (2016-2020), who was himself in his collimator. The CICIG had brought to light resounding cases of corruption, even leading to the resignation in 2015 of President Otto Pérez.
Since Mr. Giammattei came to power, several anti-corruption prosecutors who had worked with the UN mission have been arrested, while others have gone into exile. The prosecution was ordered by Attorney General Consuelo Porras, a close friend of President Giammattei, herself listed by Washington on a list of corrupt personalities.
The “dictatorship of a group [knit together] by economic interests, corruption and even organized crime” imposes its views, according to the former UN rapporteur for freedom of expression, Frank La Rue. He describes a political scene where “we see the director, the president, moving his pawns. But what you don’t see is who is writing the script and who is financing the play.”
Woe to those who try to unlock the secrets of power: José Ruben Zamora, the founding director of the newspaper El Periodico, which has published numerous investigations into corruption cases, is accused of money laundering and blackmail. Imprisoned since July 29, 2022, he faces a sentence of six to twenty years in prison and his newspaper has been forced to close.