Guatemala started the electoral process lagging ahead of the June presidential election. Election tribunal judges ruled Thursday night after hours of detention against an appeal by the Movement for the Liberation of Peoples (MLP), a left-wing organization that was denied the registration of its candidates, leader Maya Thelma Cabrera and former human rights lawyer Jordán Rodas. In this way, the court eliminated two anti-government candidates supported by thousands of peasants and indigenous people. “It was an arbitrary decision based on illegality,” Rodas told this newspaper from Bogotá, where he received news that his candidacy for vice president had been rejected. “It’s revenge. The most conservative sectors of Guatemala hand me the bill, which I am a thorn in their side,” says Rodas.
Cabrera and Rodas announced on December 28 their decision to run in the presidential elections. And in late January they went to the electoral tribunal To their candidatures, a registration that was denied because Rodas has an ongoing investigation into alleged irregularities during his tenure as head of the Human Rights Ombudsman, according to officials in charge of the process. He assures that the news surprised him because he was not notified. “I meet all the requirements of the constitution and the electoral law,” says Rodas. “This is obviously a strategy for political purposes against me. My successor in the Attorney General’s Office has filed a complaint and sent it to the Court of Auditors without stating what I am accused of. He says there are irregularities, but without clarifying what they are,” Rodas defended himself.
For him it is a political strategy of conservative sectors that hold a lot of power in Guatemala, such as businessmen and ex-military figures whom Rodas has denounced for acts of corruption. Last August, during an interview with EL PAÍS in his office at the Attorney General’s Office in Guatemala City, Rodas said: “Here we must speak clearly, the CACIF [la principal cámara empresarial] This has done great damage to the country. Those who dominate industry and banking, who have accumulated wealth in this selfish model, reduce inequality. Instead of caring for an economic system that creates better living conditions, they think they own the farm and act accordingly, like foremen, and they have only put puppets in power, manipulated and given people like political oxygen every four years [los expresidentes] Otto Pérez Molina, Jimmy Morales and Alejandro Giammattei”.
Jordan Rodas Andrade in his office. sandra sebastian
His criticism undoubtedly aroused the contempt of great fortunes in a country where nothing moves without the consent of big business. These conservative sectors see a threat from the candidacy of two people who have harshly criticized the system, who denounce corruption and impunity, and who have focused their electoral strategy squarely on fighting what is known in Guatemala as the “corruption pact”. an alliance between government and business where abuse and arbitrariness prevail. They also work for social improvements for the poorest and indigenous people, who will be forever forgotten, reduced to misery and even exterminated, as happened during the bloody dictatorship of Efraín Ríos Montt. A daughter of Ríos Montt, Zury Ríos, is seeking the presidency on Saturday received her certificate as a candidate. In Guatemala it is said that Ríos is, of all things, the candidate of the oligarchy, the businessmen and the military.
Cabrera and Rodas pledge that they will use all legal means available to them in the Guatemalan system to overturn the electoral tribunal’s decision. Rodas denounced Ramiro Muñoz, the head of Guatemala’s civil registry — the body responsible for registering the candidatures of candidates to participate in the electoral process — to his country’s prosecutors, and next week they will go to the Supreme Court, the last we hope that both candidates must be admitted to the election. However, you know that the Supreme Court has been denounced for its partisanship. “The court will face the great challenge of demonstrating its independence from political and economic powers,” says Rodas. “Judges must decide whether to bear the costs that this means for democracy,” he adds.
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Human rights organizations have warned of the irregularities that are already marking a process that is just beginning. “The electoral process will take place in a context of deteriorating rule of law. International scrutiny is key to protecting Guatemalans’ right to participate in free and fair elections,” said Juan Pappier, deputy Americas director at Human Rights Watch. This body issued a report at the end of January warning of “threats” against the elections. “The institutions tasked with overseeing the elections have little independence and credibility,” Pappier said.
Supporters of Thelma Cabrera during a rally in Guatemala City. David Toro (EFE)
The HRW report notes that “The Supreme Electoral Tribunal, the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court, the Comptroller General of Accounts, and the Public Ministry should guarantee Guatemalan citizens their political rights and protect the legitimacy of the electoral process,” according to Human Rights Watch and WOLA. Many officials of these institutions were appointed through processes that were not fair, transparent or independent, and have shown a blatant disregard for the rule of law.” The agency recalls that “in recent years, the Guatemalan authorities have weakened the separation of powers and human rights guarantees, to ensure impunity for widespread corruption in the highest echelons of power. Prosecutors have brought false charges against independent journalists, prosecutors and judges who investigated or uncovered acts of corruption, human rights abuses and cases of abuse of power.” There are now more than a dozen prosecutors and judges who have been fighting corruption and threatening the country exiled, and one of Guatemala’s most prominent journalists, José Rubén Zamora, was caught. Zamora has denounced political persecution against him.
It is in this context of institutional decay and corruption that the elections take place. The campaign officially begins in March and Guatemalans will go to the polls on June 25 to elect a new president, 160 MPs and more than 300 mayors. Among the candidates for Guatemala’s presidency are ultra-conservative businessman Roberto Arzú, an admirer of Donald Trump who has said he is “ready to make Guatemala great” and paraphrased the Republican’s campaign slogan; Edmon Mulet, a moderate diplomat with an extensive knowledge of international politics and a critic of his country’s political class and the corruption that is consuming it; former First Lady Sandra Torres of the National Unity of Hope party, whose members are linked to corruption scandals; Zury Ríos, who in 1990 led a mob that entered Congress while electoral reform was being discussed, leaving several wounded. Ríos is now presenting itself as a candidate who respects democracy, despite the heavy burden of the bloody past of her father, a coup plotter accused of ordering the annihilation of thousands of indigenous people and destroying at least 400 Maya communities.
Ríos leads the polls so far with 16% of voting intentions. To win the election, candidates must obtain 50% of the votes, failing which a second ballot will be organised. In the last elections, Thelma Cabrera surprised with fourth place in the first ballot with more than 450,000 votes, although it was not enough to make it into the second ballot. Cabrera has the support of indigenous communities, but it’s not clear if that support will be enough to win the election should his candidacy go ahead.
Zury Ríos and Héctor Cifuentes receive their credentials as presidential candidates in Guatemala.JOSUE DECAVELE (Portal)
Dozens of MLP supporters protested last week To Cabrera and Rodas’ candidatures, threatening demonstrations and pickets across the country. “The communities are active, outraged and fed up,” says Rodas. “This has to be taken into account, because people’s patience is neither eternal nor made of rubber, and this can be the cause of a social explosion that can be avoided if the rule of law and democracy are respected,” warns the former lawyer. In a country sinking into an abyss of corruption and impunity, Guatemalans at least want the elections to be more than a mere formality. But the process has begun to falter, foretelling that the coming months will be fraught with tension in this small Central American nation.
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