Sometimes the Good Guys Win: Guatemala's Kleptocracy Fights Back

The country’s authoritarian elites failed to overturn the 2023 elections and maintain their grip on power. Here’s why.

Thursday, April 18, 2024 / BY: Ambassador Stephen G. McFarland

PUBLICATION TYPE: Analysis


Editor’s Note: This is part 2 of a 3-part series examining Guatemala’s 2023-24 elections and the implications for regional efforts to curb corruption. Part 1 explored how and why efforts to tilt the playing field in favor of the governing party instead opened the door for Bernado Arévalo’s unexpected electoral victory.

Last year was a pivotal moment for Guatemala’s democracy. Longshot candidate Bernardo Arévalo rode popular anti-corruption fervor into a shocking second place finish in the first-round presidential polls, ultimately winning the presidency in the runoff. Since Guatemala transitioned to a democracy in the mid-1980s, the country has been wracked by increasingly pervasive corruption, perpetrated and perpetuated by venal elites.



Indigenous protesters camp in front of the attorney general’s office, demanding her resignation for targeting Bernardo Arévalo, the president-elect with investigations, in Guatemala City, Nov. 28, 2023. (Daniele Volpe/The New York Times)
This corruption has resulted in poor governance, insecurity, poverty and exclusion, which in turn drive growing migration to the United States. So, when Arévalo and his anti-corruption Semilla Movement won the elections, Guatemala’s “pacto de los corruptos,” — an alliance of government officials, politicians, prosecutors, judges, party financiers, state contractors and some wealthy families — fought back, attempting to reverse the election in a bid to maintain their grip on power.

But Guatemalan civil society, particularly Indigenous leaders, refused to allow the election to be overturned. They were supported by the international community, and by U.S. policies and pressure because what happens in Guatemala is key to regional stability — a vital U.S. interest — and because Washington views the protection and promotion of democracy as a key foreign policy principle.

The Kleptocracy Responds
Incumbent President Alejandro Giammattei initially appeared to accept the runoff results, going to the extreme of stating he would defend an “orderly transition” with his life, if necessary. This was a lie: Attorney General Porras, a close ally of Giammattei who had been reappointed in 2022, renewed efforts to overturn the elections.

There were three prongs to these efforts, all spearheaded by the Prosecutor’s Office: (1) the ongoing suspension of president-elect Bernardo Arévalo’s Semilla Movement for alleged malfeasance in 2018 when it collected signatures to become a legally recognized political party; (2) alleged vote count fraud; and (3) attempts to discredit the electoral tribunal based on allegations that the magistrates had fraudulently contracted for goods and services.

The attorney general’s actions showed that Giammattei and his allies were determined to block the transfer of power. Although Arévalo denounced the plot as a “coup” against the electoral process, the president-elect and his party chose caution and did not call for citizen protests. Other major parties and business associations were mostly silent. With no other recourse, civil society, led by the country’s ancestral Indigenous authorities, began to protest.

More:
https://www.usip.org/publications/2024/04/sometimes-good-guys-win-guatemalas-kleptocracy-fights-back