Guatemalan President-elect Bernardo Arévalo on Friday denounced plans for a “coup” aimed at preventing him from seizing power in January after winning the August 20 election with a promise to fight against corruption.
“There is a group of corrupt politicians and officials who refuse to accept the result (of the poll) and who have set up a plan to break the constitutional order and violate democracy,” Mr Arévalo said. during a press conference.
The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) suspended Monday, at the request of a judge, the Semilla party of Mr. Arévalo. He then denounced “a process of political persecution” against him and his party.
This time, he judges that “these actions constitute a coup d’etat promoted by the institutions which should guarantee justice in our country”.
“As elected President of the Republic, I call (…) on all Guatemalans who reject corruption and authoritarianism to join forces in defense of democracy,” insisted the social democrat.
On Wednesday, the Guatemalan parliament put an end to Semilla’s group. Consequently, its five deputies, including Mr. Arévalo, will no longer be able to chair committees or participate in the development of the legislative agenda. During the next legislature, which should take office with Mr. Arévalo in the presidency on January 14, Semilla will have 23 deputies.
“If Semilla loses its legal status, the only implication is that its deputies could not assume their functions as members of a parliamentary group, this does not affect the investiture of deputies, let alone that of the president and the vice -president,” independent analyst Luis Linares told AFP.
“It could be that they use (judicialization) as an element of pressure to bring him to negotiate, but on fallacious bases, to give them impunity or quotas of power”, he estimated.
The United States and the EU, through the voice of their heads of diplomacy, respectively said that they castigated “the efforts made by the public prosecutor and other actors to suspend the political party of the elected president and to intimidate the electoral authorities” and to be ” concerned about the persistent attempts to undermine the results of the elections through selective and arbitrary legal and procedural actions”.
On Tuesday, Semilla’s lawyer, Me Juan Gerardo Guerrero, told the press that he had filed “a request for annulment” with the TSE.
After the first round of the presidential election on June 25, Judge Fredy Orellana had already 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.
The United States considers MM. Orellana and Curruchiche as “corrupt”.
The TSE had not followed the judge’s order on the grounds that it is impossible to suspend a party in the middle of the electoral process.
The Constitutional Court of Guatemala then guaranteed the holding of the second round on the scheduled date between the two qualified candidates, Mr. Arévalo and the former First Lady Sandra Torres.
On August 20, Bernardo Arévalo emerged as the clear winner with nearly 60% of the vote. His opponent, herself seen as a corrupt person by many Guatemalans, denounced an alleged “fraud” during the election and never admitted defeat.
02/09/2023 01:00:16 – Guatemala (AFP) – © 2023 AFP