{"id":59896,"date":"2023-09-13T16:22:21","date_gmt":"2023-09-13T23:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=59896"},"modified":"2023-09-13T16:22:21","modified_gmt":"2023-09-13T23:22:21","slug":"in-guatemala-a-coup-in-slow-motion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=59896","title":{"rendered":"In Guatemala, A Coup in Slow Motion"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By<\/span>Pedro Arce<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Forces in the Central American nation are working to undermine the transition of power to President Elect Bernardo Ar\u00e9valo, who last month claimed a landslide win.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Leer en espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This is a dangerous moment in Guatemala. Despite the\u00a0recent landslide vote<\/a>\u00a0in favor of presidential anti-corruption candidate Bernardo Ar\u00e9valo, and its certification by the national electoral authority, forces are doing everything possible to prevent the president-elect from taking office on January 14, from launching legal challenges to hatching assassination plots.\u00a0The Organization of American States has asked for Arevalo to be protected.<\/p>\n

If\u00a0attempts succeed to derail the orderly transfer of power in the largest country in Central America, repercussions will be grave not only for democracy in Guatemala, but also for 2 million Guatemalans living and working in the United States. The money they labor to send home \u2013 $1.8 billion last year \u2013 will be worth less as corrupt structures stay in place and the risk increases of political instability.<\/p>\n

After peace agreements in the 1990s ended a long and brutal armed conflict, Guatemalans have sought to reestablish the democracy they lost almost 70 years ago, using Constitutional processes and the agreements, including elections.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the traditional oligarchy and politicians, along with the military and sectors that have emerged under their shadow, such as mafias involved in drugs and human trafficking, have maintained control of the state apparatus, and today, more than ever, threaten the stability of the country. By means of dubious judicial procedures, the current regime is creating obstacles to impede the newly elected authorities, who campaigned on eliminating corruption, from taking office.<\/p>\n

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Bernardo Ar\u00e9valo (L) won the 2nd and final round of voting in Guatemala and will take over as the Central American nation\u2019s next president alongside his running mate, Karin Herrera.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

They oppose Ar\u00e9valo because the president-elect and his Semilla Movement party are responding to deep seated desires of most Guatemalans to overcome the conditions of poverty, backwardness, discrimination, insecurity and absolute lack of legal certainty imposed by an alliance of powerful politicians and members of the business and military sectors. In Guatemala, the alliance is commonly known as \u201cthe Pact of the Corrupt\u201d.<\/p>\n

Instead of the old recourse of using a military uprising to subvert the will of voters, the Pact of the Corrupt, including several state institutions, is conspiring to break the constitutional order through a coup in slow motion, using the judicial system in place of bullets and proclamations to subvert the electoral system.<\/p>\n

The Guatemalan constitution establishes that elections are ruled by the Elections and Political Parties Act implemented by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE). Throughout the run-ups to the first and second round of voting on June 25 and August 20, unscrupulous courts have been twisting the law to prohibit the inscription of political parties opposing the regime and allowing the participation of those perceived as innocuous. When voters favored Arevalo\u2019s party, once considered innocuous, with a surprise victory, the current regime began attempts to fatally cripple Semilla.<\/p>\n

Those attempts include the following:<\/p>\n