International concern over the future of Guatemala’s democracy is growing, as Brazil’s president warned of a possible coup to stop the president-elect taking power and the US denounced unprecedented attempts to undermine the Central American country’s election result.
The centre-left anti-corruption crusader Bernardo Arévalo was elected Guatemala’s new president last month. This week thousands of supporters took to the streets to protest against alleged attempts to block his inauguration in January.
Last week, Arévalo – the son of Guatemala’s first democratically elected president, Juan José Arévalo – temporarily pulled out of the transition process after government officials raided electoral facilities where ballot boxes were being stored. Arévalo has accused corrupt officials and politicians of launching “a plan to break the constitutional order and subvert democracy”. “A coup d’état [is] under way,” he claimed earlier this month after attempts to suspend his party, the Movimiento Semilla (Seed Movement).
Addressing the UN general assembly on Tuesday, the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, echoed Arévalo’s warning, citing the crisis in Guatemala after recent “institutional ruptures” in the African nations of Burkina Faso, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Sudan. “In Guatemala, there’s the risk of a coup, which would prevent the winner of democratic elections taking office,” Lula said.
Lula’s remarks followed comments on Monday from Francisco Mora, the US’s ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), about the “troubling” situation in Guatemala.
Mora said Washington was “deeply concerned about the unprecedented actions of those seeking to undermine democracy in Guatemala by discrediting and obstructing a smooth transition of power”.
“Such anti-democratic behaviour, including ongoing efforts by the public ministry and other corrupt individuals to suspend the president-elect’s political party, all subverts the clear will of the Guatemalan people,” Mora said.
“In a healthy democracy, institutions don’t tamper with ballot boxes after election results have been officially certified by the appropriate authority. Such interference and lawfare … strikes at the very heart of the democratic process and represents an assault on the rule of law.”
Lula’s alert was quickly rejected by Guatemala’s outgoing rightwing president, Alejandro Giammattei, as “unnecessary international interference”.
“Contrary to the untruths … we have heard from this podium today, on 14 January I will hand power to [the person] elected by the sovereign majority will of the people of Guatemala,” Giammattei told the general assembly.
Political observers had hailed Arévalo’s surprise election as a powerful correction to the democratic deterioration in Latin America, where countries such as El Salvador, Nicaragua and Venezuela have taken an alarming authoritarian turn in recent years. Concerns have also been raised over the erosion of democratic institutions in Mexico under its president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and the deadly crackdown on anti-government protests in Peru under Dina Boluarte.
Speaking at the UN, Lula hailed his 2022 election victory over Brazil’s far right former president Jair Bolsonaro as a “triumph of democracy” over “hate, misinformation and oppression”. But the Brazilian leftwinger was criticised by some for denouncing the democratic crisis in Guatemala and the US embargo on Cuba but failing to mention the dismantling of democracy in Nicaragua or Venezuela.
Pamela Ruiz, a Central America analyst for Crisis Group, said it was hard to predict what the coming weeks had in store for Guatemala. But she believed it was possible members of Arévalo’s party – or even Arévalo himself – could face criminal charges after the official electoral process ended on 31 October.
“If Arévalo is not allowed to take office there could be very grave consequences for this country,” Ruiz said, describing a mood of trepidation among ordinary citizens who feared “the corrupt” elites would “do whatever it takes to stop him getting in”.
“That’s a very scary statement,” Ruiz added, “because ‘whatever it takes’ is pretty much implying a coup.”
