Guatemala’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) has declared the outcomes of this 12 months’s presidential race “unalterable”, after public prosecutors overtly questioned whether or not to annul the vote.
The prosecutors’ statements sparked a home and worldwide firestorm, marking what critics think about the most recent — and most immediately said — effort to overturn President-elect Bernardo Arevalo’s election victory.
The Organisation of American States (OAS), a regional election watchdog, went as far as to sentence the statements as “an attempted coup d’etat“.
“The actions and statements of prosecutors Rafael Curruchiche and Leonor Morales constitute an alteration of the country’s constitutional order, a breach of the rule of law and a violation of the human rights of the population of their country,” it stated in a press release on Friday.
“The attempt to annul this year’s general elections constitutes the worst form of democratic breakdown and the consolidation of a political fraud against the will of the people.”
The newest chapter in Guatemala’s ongoing election turmoil erupted on Friday with a press conference led by Curruchiche, Morales and Ángel Pineda Ávila, the secretary common of the Public Ministry.
Prosecutors with the Public Ministry have been accused of undemocratic actions prior to now. The USA, as an example, has beforehand alleged that Curruchiche and Pineda “obstructed investigations into acts of corruption” to additional their political goals.
In a press conference on Friday, the prosecutors reiterated their request that Arevalo be stripped of his political immunity, a step that might open him as much as prosecution. They accused him of improperly gathering signatures for his presidential marketing campaign, in addition to mishandling political funds.
However they went a step additional, elevating the prospect of the presidential election being overturned as the results of their findings.
“Today is a historic day for democratic institutions,” Pineda stated within the press convention, defending his colleagues’ work as “impartial” and denying any intent to intrude within the election outcomes.
However the backlash to the press convention was swift. Blanca Alfaro, the top of the Supreme Election Tribunal, a authorities physique charged with sustaining election integrity, shortly responded with a information convention of her personal, refuting the likelihood {that a} new election may very well be held.
“I would like to ratify, in my role as magistrate and in a personal capacity, that the results are valid, official and unalterable,” she stated.
She additionally affirmed that Arevalo and his vice chairman, Karin Herrera, would take workplace as deliberate. “At this moment, there is no way that the Supreme Electoral Tribunal is going to repeat the elections.”
Prosecutors have beforehand focused the Supreme Election Tribunal itself, ordering raids on its places of work after the elections that resulted in sealed poll containers being opened.
Guatemala has lengthy struggled to rein in official corruption. As an illustration, a United Nations-backed physique referred to as the Worldwide Fee in opposition to Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) discovered itself abruptly shuttered in 2021, after then-President Jimmy Morales accused it of unlawful acts.
Morales himself has since come underneath investigation for corrupt activities.
This 12 months’s presidential race has likewise been marred by questions of election integrity. Three prominent candidates have been disqualified earlier than the primary spherical of voting, together with the then-frontrunner.
Arevalo, in the meantime, was a darkish horse, working on a progressive anti-corruption platform with the Seed Motion social gathering. However he soared into the highlight with a surprise second-place finish within the June common elections, securing certainly one of two spots within the run-off race.
That’s when the difficulty for him and his social gathering began. Inside days, a Guatemala court docket agreed to suspend the outcomes of the vote, pending a evaluate. After the outcomes have been upheld, the Seed Motion itself confronted suspension, after prosecutors alleged it had improperly gathered signatures to register as a political social gathering.
The efforts to droop the Seed Motion persevered even after Arevalo notched a landslide victory within the run-off. He secured over 60 p.c of the vote, trouncing former Vice President Sandra Torres, a conservative candidate.
However prosecutors have continued to analyze Arevalo, prompting election observers to query whether or not they plan to scuttle his victory by way of antidemocratic means.
In November, as an example, the Public Ministry filed a request to strip Arevalo of his political immunity over his participation in a student-led protest motion, citing his social media posts on the time.
Protests, nevertheless, have damaged out throughout the nation to uphold the election outcomes, a lot of which have been led by Indigenous leaders.
Arevalo is scheduled to be sworn into workplace on January 14, succeeding outgoing conservative President Alejandro Giammattei.
