Guatemala votes this Sunday in convulsive elections marked by the judicialization of the process promoted by those who have wanted to prevent political change in the country. Ever since the Seed Movement candidate, Bernardo Arévalo de León, stormed into the first round by surprise, managing to come in second, the Prosecutor’s Office and a judge colluded to expel him from the race, accusing him of fraud.
In this context of judicialization of the elections, the magistrate of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) Blanca Alfaro announced, as soon as voting began, that on Tuesday she will present her resignation before Congress. In this way, she said that she could be investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office, although she did not give details of what she is accused of. Despite this, she insisted that “everyone says that there are criminal actions against us as magistrates and, if the authorities of the Public Ministry consider that I should appear before Justice, I will do it.” Alfaro denounced having received death threats on her mobile phone and for three months, they have placed papers in her vehicle warning her that she will end up in jail.
Since the first round held on June 25, the TSE has been in the spotlight by defending democracy and refusing to suspend the legal personality of the Seed Movement ordered by the judge of the Seventh Court Fredy Orellana, at the request of the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity (FECI). Specifically, the head of the FECI, Rafael Curruchiche, who in 2022 was included in the US Engel List of corrupt and undemocratic actors, accuses Semilla of illegally adhering to this party more than 300 people “falsifying their handwriting and signature” as well as to register “18 deceased people”.
These judicial actions against the party of the candidate Bernardo Arévalo de León, who led the intention to vote, provoked numerous demonstrations in recent months in front of the Prosecutor’s Office to denounce a “coup d’état” by the status quo that sees its power threatened with the irruption of Semilla, a party born from the massive protests against corruption in 2015. A few days after the second round, Curruchiche even warned that more raids, new arrest warrants and requests for the withdrawal of immunity that could affect Bernardo Arévalo himself in order to be investigated and imprisoned.
All this judicial earthquake did not prevent thousands of people from voting this Sunday between two antagonistic projects: the ultra-conservative Sandra Torres, from the National Unity of Hope, who opposes abortion and sexual diversity and who for the third consecutive time is trying to preside over the country. Opposite her was the social democrat Bernardo Arévalo de León, from the Seed Movement, who has promised to get the country out of the “swamp of corruption.”
When it seemed that the candidacy of Arévalo de León was in danger, the Constitutional Court granted a provisional amparo to the Seed Movement, thus annulling the judicial order to suspend its legal personality for the duration of the electoral process. This did not prevent the Prosecutor’s Office from carrying out two raids at the TSE and one at the Semilla headquarters itself, from where heavily armed prosecutors and police officers took large amounts of documentation. Curruchiche announced that it is also investigating the TSE magistrates who in 2018 allowed Semilla to register as a political party, to the point that Judge Orellana ordered the capture of the deputy director of the Citizens’ Registry, Eleonora Noemí Castillo, as well as two leaders of the Seed Movement.
While Arévalo de León denounced the “political persecution” against his party in order to prevent him from being able to govern, his rival, Sandra Torres, has dedicated the campaign to calling the Semilla candidate “corrupt” from whom he demands “explanations for lifting the tomb of the dead so that they would join their illegally constituted group”.
Three days before the elections, prosecutor Curruchiche added fuel to the fire, after revealing that he had launched a new investigation into the fact that, in the June 25 elections, there were data entry workers belonging to the Seed Movement and who were in charge of transferring the vote count to the preliminary results computer system. Torres assures that this generates “mistrust and uncertainty” in the electoral process, for which reason, in his opinion, “this smacks of fraud.”
A few hours before the elections, the Supreme Court of Justice ordered the TSE to transmit the electoral results in a “faithful and exact” manner to the counting of votes. Arévalo de León is clear that the sole purpose of all this judicialization is that “the same as always continue trying to steal our future to pass over the will of the people.”