“Efforts to deny the democratic will of the Guatemalan people rightly saw an almost immediate response from both the indigenous and working-class movements in the form of a mass protest”
By Logan Williams, Labour Friends of Progressive Latin America
On January 14th 2024, Bernardo Arévalo and his Movimiento Semilla party have finally succeeded in being sworn into the presidency of the Central American nation of Guatemala. The Semilla party was first formed in the midst of the 2015 mass demonstrations against the government of Otto Pérez Molina and, the allegation of mass corruption against members of the Government.
Arevalo’s election victory came as a surprise to many followers of Latin American politics due to the particularly heightened use of ‘lawfare’ by the Guatemalan right-wing government to block candidates from even the most slightly left of centre political parties.
The first example of the use of ‘lawfare’ came when the Guatemalan right-wing government on the 27th January, 2023, utilised the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) to block the registration of the joint presidential ticket of Indigenous peasant movement leader Thelma Cabrera Pérez and former human rights ombudsman Jordán Rodas. These progressive figures were standing on a joint presidential ticket for one of Guatemala’s largest political parties, the Movement for the Liberation of the Peoples (MLP).
The next usage of the lawfare weapon took place one week after the Guatemalan presidential election on Saturday, 1 July 2023. The Guatemalan political right shortly after the election presented a desperate appeal to Guatemala’s highest Constitutional Court to halt the certification of the first round, suspend the release of official results, and initiate a recount due to unspecified “anomalies” in the results.
On July 2nd, the Constitutional Court ordered the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) to suspend the release of official presidential election results. This act was swiftly followed by an attempt by the Right of Guatemalan politics to immediately dissolve the Movimiento Semilla political party and to retroactively disqualify all party members elected to office. These efforts continued until December 15th when the Constitutional court guaranteed that it would protect the inauguration of Arévalo and his fellow representatives despite the best efforts of the political right.
However, despite the assurances of the constitutional court, we would see the political right in what has been dubbed as the “Pacto do Corruptos”, led by Attorney General Consuelo Porras, try to prevent the Semilla movement’s ascent to power in Guatemala. Porras’ actions would see Members of Congress representing Semilla be detained within the Congress itself whilst the national Qualifying Board spent hours “deliberating” and denying credentials to incoming Members of Congress to try and deny the democratic rights of those elected by the Guatemalan people.
These efforts to deny the democratic will of the Guatemalan people rightly saw an almost immediate response from both the indigenous and working-class movements in the form of a mass protest outside of the National Theatre; the building within which the Inauguration would take place, led predominately by female indigenous activists. In response to this mass resistance to the Coup attempt, it has been reported that the Guatemalan National Police fired tear gas into the crowd as well as the use of riot police to disperse the crowds demanding the immediate inauguration of the President-Elect.
The “Pacto do Corruptos” chose to undertake these actions despite the presence of numerous foreign officials and Presidents including representatives of both Gustavo Petro’s government in Colombia and Xiomara Castro’s in Honduras. These gathered officials would issue an immediate public statement which called “on the Congress of the Republic to fulfil its constitutional mandate to hand over power as required by the constitution today to president-elect Bernardo Arévalo and vice president-elect Karin Herrera”. They went on to state that the “Guatemalan people expressed their democratic will in fair, free and transparent elections, endorsed by the international community through its electoral observation missions. That will must be respected”.
In the face of these acts of resistance to the attempts to stall and nullify the election of the Movimiento Semilla party, the coup attempt itself would only succeed in delaying his inauguration by a few hours. Arévalo’s inauguration speech declared that his government will work to ensure there is “no more corruption, no more exclusion” in Guatemala but in working towards this goal, his movement will face “monumental challenges to eradicate the corrupt practices that are entrenched in courts, prosecutors, Parliament, government, mayors and other public institutions” as a result of the degeneration led by the political right throughout its varying hues of government.
We have seen in recent years the political right in Latin America seemingly gain in desperation in their attempts to override the democratic and often overwhelmingly progressive choices of their citizens from: the removal and imprisonment of Pedro Castillo in Peru, the near constant destabilisation attempts of the far right in Bolivia and, the attempt to overthrow Lula’s government via an invasion of Brazil’s Congress buildings shortly after his re-election.
It is logical to suggest that with the recent election of Milei in Argentina that these movements will be emboldened and, as such it is vital that all internationalists and progressives in Britain remain focussed on defending those progressive movements in Latin America that are seeking to overcome the fear of violence, the use of lawfare to silence political dissent and, the use of coups to override the democratic will of the masses.
- Logan Williams is a NEU activist and an organiser for Labour Friends of Progressive Latin America (LFPLA). You can follow Logan on twitter here; and follow LFPLA on Facebook and Twitter/X.
- If you support Labour Outlook’s work amplifying the voices of left movements and struggles here and internationally, please consider becoming a supporter on Patreon.
