One step forward, two steps back?
Guatemala’s topsy-turvy election was thrown into further turmoil Thursday after the attorney general’s office raided the country’s electoral authority’s office. Hours earlier, a special prosecutor suspended the political party of Bernardo Arevalo, an anti-corruption candidate who shocked the country’s political class by qualifying for a second-round vote.
Wednesday night’s announcement by Rafael Curruchiche, a controversial special prosecutor in Guatemala’s attorney general’s office, dropped just minutes before electoral authorities formally certified the results of the country’s first-round vote after a separate court had ordered a review of vote tallies amid thin claims of counting irregularities. Guatemala’s electoral law prohibits the suspension of political parties between when an election is called and when it is held.
It was not immediately clear what Curruchiche’s last-minute intervention means for the runoff scheduled for Aug. 20 between Arevalo and former first lady Sandra Torres. However, the move to suspend Arevalo’s Seed Movement party drew swift calls for Guatemalans to take to the streets to protest, as well as criticism from western officials. Brian Nichols, an assistant secretary of State, tweeted that the U.S. was “deeply concerned” by threats to Guatemala’s democracy. “Institutions must respect the will of voters,” he said.
Curruchiche and his boss Attorney General Consuelo Porras have long faced corruption allegations. In the past, both officials have been sanctioned by the U.S. State Department.
Curruchiche was named as someone who has “obstructed investigations into acts of corruption” and made “spurious claims” against government officials, prosecutors and attorneys, in a 2021 State Department report.
Guatemala’s election uncertainty: What happened?
Arevalo, a 64-year-old sociologist, anti-corruption campaigner and son of former President Juan Jose Arevalo, defied the doubters grabbing a top spot in the first round of Guatemala’s presidential election last month.
He came in second behind Torres, with just under 12% of the vote, a result that experts say amounts to crushing it in a race where no candidate won more than 16% of votes.
Arevalo did so partly because several more popular candidates – both right and left wing – who represented a challenge to the status quo were barred from running on various alleged technicalities. And partly because, with nearly a quarter of all ballots left blank, his left-of-center Seed Movement party likely benefited from public discontent with the other candidates.
Election deniers then cast ill-founded doubt over the results, even though independent election monitors said there were few signs of wrong-doing in the June 25 vote.
Guatemala’s top court nevertheless agreed to freeze certification of the first-round results following allegations of counting irregularities from 10 of the 29 parties that fielded candidates. Torres’ right-of-center National Hope Unity party was among those who challenged the count.
Will Freeman, a Latin America fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, said the intervention was likely a delaying tactic by Guatemala’s “establishment factions” aimed at casting doubt on the integrity of the vote. He said that these factions, “who have controlled Guatemala’s politics for a long time,” are “buying themselves a little bit of time” to coordinate in the event that Arevalo, who has vowed sweeping anti-corruption reforms, emerges victorious in the second round, a serious possibility.
Arevalo has said he fears “criminal political groups” could be attempting to block him from the presidency.
“The cries of fraud echo those in the United States after President Biden’s 2020 victory, although, with the entire judicial system on their side, Guatemala’s election deniers stand a better chance of pulling it off,” wrote Anita Isaacs, Rachel A. Schwartz and Alvaro Montenegro, all experts on Guatemala, in an essay in the New York Times on Thursday.
Guatemala’s democracy is in peril and could threaten US border
Even the U.S. government has warned over possible efforts to interfere with Guatemala’s presidential election results. What’s more, the election in the small Central American nation of almost 17 million could have a decisive impact in a region so closely tied to the United States and key to securing the southern border.
The Biden administration might be in for a little déjà vu.
After all, they’ve already had to contend with a migrant surge triggered by the fallout of the presidential elections in neighboring Nicaragua – when President Daniel Ortega locked up dozens of political opponents ahead of his country’s presidential elections in 2021.
Ever since, Nicaraguans have been flocking to the United States at historic levels. U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered Nicaraguan migrants nearly 165,000 times in fiscal year 2022.
What is Bernardo Arevalo’s appeal?
Arevalo appeared to strike a chord with young voters by being sincere and sticking to his academic roots, even if it wasn’t these qualities that ultimately catapulted him to the second round.
“He’s the least populist guy you can imagine. His interviews all feature explanations with like six bullet points in them. There aren’t any slogans. He’s almost painfully devoid of slogans and other messaging. There’s no TikTok videos,” said Freeman, of the Council on Foreign Relations. (Conservative businessman Carlos Pineda, one of the presidential hopefuls who was excluded from the vote for alleged violations of electoral law, had used the video-sharing app to become an early front-runner.)
What happens now in Guatemala vote?
Lucas Perello, a professor at Marist College who studies political parties and democracy in Latin America, said that despite the certification delay he expected the two top vote getters from the first round to eventually move forward to compete in a second-round vote.
Curruchiche, the prosecutor, claims there is evidence Arevalo’s Seed Movement party illegally collected false signatures as part of the process of establishing itself as a party. But Guatemala’s election law prohibits the suspension of political parties between the official calling of the election and the election itself.
With a second round of voting required because no candidate exceeded 50% of the vote, it appeared that the Seed Movement could not be suspended.
“Guatemala is either going to get continuity,” said Perello, referring to Torres, 67, a veteran political operator who has faced corruption allegations and is hoping to become Guatemala’s first female leader on her third run for president. “Or it’s going to get change under Arevalo,” whose father was president before his successor was overthrown in a CIA-backed coup in 1954 that set the stage for a civil war and decades of endemic corruption.
What does the vote mean for emigration flows, U.S. border policy?
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that if the first-round results were undermined it would represent “a grave threat to democracy with far reaching implications.”
It may have a much more specific impact.
More than 220,000 Guatemalans crossed into the U.S. via the Mexico border in 2022, according to Border Patrol figures. In June the U.S. and Guatemala announced a pilot program intended to “manage the historic irregular migration challenge impacting both countries.”
The move was part of the Biden administration’s push to restrict migration and asylum seekers.
Title 42’s end:Biden leaned on Guatemala for help. Now, they’re calling up Republicans
Eric Olson, director of policy at the Seattle International Foundation, an organization that works to strengthen the rule of law in Central America, said in a recent panel appearance that Guatemala, like other Central American nations, lacks institutional “guard rails” and “mechanisms to fight corruption” and that this “robs” people of their future. “If you don’t believe in a future in your country, what alternative do you have? You head North.”
He said Arevalo’s better-than-expected first-round performance could also be explained by his popularity among young voters. “There are a lot of young people in that country who are disgusted by the oligarchs and the old-guard playing dirty political (tricks).” He said Arevalo’s initial success in the first round, though not necessarily indicative of what will come next, was a reminder that “we can’t just give into authoritarian tendencies.”
Freeman said that if the certification delay leads to “maneuvering to install a pro-establishment” president, for many Guatemalans the “last spark of hope will be extinguished and migration will probably go up.” He added: “If Arevalo is elected I’m not sure there’s any guarantee it will go down.”
Contributing: Associated Press
