Guatemala will elect president questioned by allegations of electoral fraud

In the decisive week to elect Guatemala’s president, the popular left-wing leader Thelma Cabrera is calling on indigenous peoples to vote null or blank. For Cabrera, whose presidential aspiration was invalidated by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, no candidate represents them, and giving them the vote would be to be an accomplice “of the mafia and the corrupt pact.” And although experts in electoral law do not give credence to the invalid vote since it requires more than 50 percent of the consigned votes to repeat the elections, it is worth saying that in Guatemala close to half of the population is of Mayan origin.

Interviewed by France 24, Cabrera said that the reasons for removing her from the presidential race “are excuses, because we know that mafias like organized crime are entrenched in corrupt State institutions.” Her party, her MLP, the Movement for the Liberation of the Peoples, signed as many protections and legal appeals as possible. But she did not reach him. The TSE’s decision to dismiss her was emphatic, arguing that her vice-presidential ticket was in an ongoing legal process.

The exclusion of Thelma Cabrera first infuriated and then crumbled the spirit of the Guatemalan left, which kept hoping to have the first indigenous woman president. “So we didn’t go from there, from the Supreme Court of Justice, from the Supreme Electoral Tribunal; They also co-opted the Human Rights Ombudsman, the Constitutional Court, everything here is co-opted”, Thelma Cabrera assured this outlet.

If Thelma Cabrera represents a threat to corrupt actors, another stick in the wheel would have been the political dolphin Roberto Arzú, son of former president Álvaro Arzú. Although all the candidates promise to fight corruption, Arzú never tires of denouncing the scandals that tarnish the current president, Alejandro Giammattei.

Many saw in the cancellation of his candidacy for the presidency a possible interference from the Executive. The TSE argued that Roberto Arzú incurred in an anticipated campaign and therefore entered the club of the presidentially evicted.

The one who definitely does not lose faith is Carlos Pineda. Until the last minute, the former presidential candidate was scratching legal protections to be re-registered in the elections on Sunday, June 25. The airplane businessman still aspires to give an electoral surprise in Guatemala. He feels validated by the exposure that his image has achieved in recent weeks due to a populist speech in which he emulates Donald Trump in the United States.

A month and a half ago, at the dawn of May, Pineda caressed the sky when a national poll catapulted him as the lone leader in the race, without suspecting that a few days later he would plummet, as happened to Icarus in Greek mythology, this time for no reason. that its political wings were cut off by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.

On paper, the plenary session of magistrates argued that his party, Prosperidad Ciudadana, committed the irregularity of proclaiming him as a candidate for the presidency during a General Assembly held extemporaneously and without having duly elected an executive committee. Since then, Pineda has done nothing more than criticize on Tik Tok, the social network where to date he has accumulated more than 24 million “Likes”, that political censorship was conjured against him.

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal denies that there is anticipated electoral fraud

The panorama of canceled candidates sparked international outrage. The director of Human Rights Watch for the Americas, Juanita Goebertus, recently landed in the Central American country and expressed with her back to the National Palace that “the most serious thing Guatemala is facing right now is the exclusion of three presidential candidates (…) through an arbitrary interpretation of the laws (…) with totally disproportionate sanctions, in cases that would usually merit maximum fines”.

But the Supreme Electoral Tribunal defends itself. From his headquarters in the historic center of Guatemala City, the director of the Electoral Institute, José Moreno, explained to France 24 that the decisions to exclude a presidential candidate reside in the jurisdiction of the plenary session of magistrates. A group led by President Magistrate Irma Palencia, who did not appear for the interview that this medium proposed.

Although José Moreno did not respond to the exclusions of Thelma Cabrera, Roberto Arzú and Carlos Pineda, he said that in Guatemala on election day there is nothing to worry about. “Let’s say that, if we do an arithmetic exercise of how electoral fraud could happen, it is exaggeratedly difficult to say that it can happen because the system is in the power of the citizens. The Court does not count votes, it does not register votes, everything is in the hands of the citizens who are the ones who count the ballots,” the official said.

For that day, Sunday June 25, the 9.3 million Guatemalans authorized in national territory and the 90,000 compatriots registered in the United States will have more than 3,800 voting centers and 24,000 polling stations. The tables will open from seven in the morning and close at six in the afternoon local time. According to the presiding magistrate of the TSE, Irma Palencia, three hours after the polls close, the first official results will be known, which will barely indicate a trend of who will be the candidates, of the 22 registered, who will go to the second round. According to Palencia, only five or eight days after the elections will the final results be known, that is, between June 30 and July 3.

The uncertain panorama of Alejandro Giammattei to consolidate his continuity in the elections

None of the three candidates most likely to be president of Guatemala, according to local polls -Edmond Mulet, Zury Ríos and Sandra Torres-, belongs to the ranks of the Vamos party, the political formation of Alejandro Giammattei. On the contrary, the polls place Manuel Conde far below, his presidential formula with which he could ensure the continuity that he so badly needs to safeguard his political immunity.

According to the local investigative journalism outlet Plaza Pública, Giammattei’s strategy is to add the largest number of mayors in his Vamos party, in exchange for works and chains of favors to preserve his political power, which can free him more ahead of future research.

And it is that all kinds of corruption scandals have rained on Giammattei for four years when he was elected president. Among the most publicized are the irregular financing of his campaign or the allegations of a million-dollar irregular purchase of Sputnik vaccines that ended up expiring. Also the alleged millionaire bribe that he received from Russian and Kazakh businessmen, wrapped in a rug that they would have left in front of his house, to grant them the administration of a port in the Caribbean.

The anti-corruption prosecutor, Juan Francisco Sandoval, who opened an investigation into the latter case, was removed from his position without prior notice by the attorney general, Consuelo Porras, in June 2021. The opposition describes Porras as ‘squire of the president’. Sandoval was forced to flee the country and has gone into exile in the United States ever since. Porras, meanwhile, replaced him with Rafael Curruchiche, who in the first days at the helm, extinguished any investigation that was carried out against Giammattei. Both Porras and Curruchiche are included in the Engel list of the United States as actors that undermine democracy and favor corruption.

But Giammattei’s so-called shielding would end when he hands over the presidency on January 14, 2024, at which time he could face the loss of his immunity. This has already happened to three presidents of the country, democratically elected, who ended up serving sentences in jails in both Guatemala and the United States, accused of corruption: Alfonso Portillo, Álvaro Colom and Otto Pérez Molina. Hence, for Giammattei these elections are crucial, in order not to suffer the same fate as his predecessors.

To ensure that electoral fraud is not committed, which could favor corrupt actors in Guatemala, an observation mission from both the European Union and the Organization of American States, OAS, will monitor and supervise the days before and after the elections on Sunday. Of course, a few hours after they are held, it is unknown how massive or scarce the participation of Guatemalans may be. A people that for the most part, undermined by poverty and violence, disbelieves in the promises that politicians make to them.