Political uncertainty grew this Wednesday in Guatemala after the justice disqualified the party of the candidate Bernardo Arévalo, but shortly after the Electoral Tribunal proclaimed him to dispute the presidential ballot with former first lady Sandra Torres.
A court disqualified the Semilla de Arévalo party, which gave the surprise in the first round, which would prevent it from contesting the runoff on August 20.
“The Seventh Criminal Court ordered the suspension of the legal status of the political party Movimiento Semilla”Rafael Curruchiche, head of the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity (FECI), who requested the disqualification, said in a video.
The court decision is controversialsince Guatemalan law itself expresses that “a party may not be suspended after an election has been called and until it has been held.”
Shortly after the special prosecutor’s announcement, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) proclaimed Torres and Arévalo, both social democratsto be measured in the second round, being the most voted among 22 candidates in the June 25 elections.
The TSE proceeded “to declare the validity” of the first presidential round and gave Torres and Arévalo the winners, said its general secretary, Mario Velázquez, when reading the resolution adopted by its magistrates.
“Win at the polls”
“The UNE party (National Unity for Hope of Torres) and the Seed movement are already in the position to start their campaign” for the ballot, said the president of the TSE, Irma Palencia.
The magistrate affirmed that she was unaware of the judicial decision against the Semilla party, previously announced by the Curruchiche prosecutor.
However, the head of the TSE added: “We know that the elections will win at the polls, with the sacred suffrage of the citizens”, in an apparent criticism of judicial meddling in the electoral process.
The judicial decision was given after the presentation of legal resources by the parties that lost the first round of the presidential elections on June 25, which gaveThe proclamation of Torres and Arévalo as candidates for the ballotage was delayed.
Prosecutor Curruchiche, who is sanctioned by Washington for prosecuting former prosecutors who fought corruption, justified the measure against Semilla for alleged irregularities in the collection of signatures for its legalization.
US concern
Experts, activists and Arévalo himself had been warning since before the elections that the democratic system was navigating troubled waters in Guatemala, for political control over the judiciary, prosecutions of journalistsexclusion of presidential candidates and persecution of prosecutors who fought corruption.
On July 2, the United States expressed its “deep concern” over the questioning of the elections in Guatemala that led to the suspension of the official results until now.
On July 1, the country’s highest judicial instance, the Constitutional Court (CC), ordered the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) that the results be subjected to a review at the request of several losing parties, who denounced alleged irregularities.
The comparison ended five days later and the results confirmed that the runoff on August 20 was to be disputed between former first lady Sandra Torres and sociologist Bernardo Arévalo, son of former reformist president Juan José Arévalo (1945-1951).
