The president of Guatemala, has assured the night of this Saturday that despite the siege of factual powers that hinder his leadership, which he has called “enchanted coup”, will manage to fulfill his promise to combat corruption and impunity in his country. In an interview with Pepa Bueno, director of El País, within the framework of the Central America Festival, Arévalo accepted that the Prosecutor’s Office, controlled by the fiscal controversial, and justice have become the main opposition poles to its management, but affirms that it will promote its reforms. “The Public Prosecutor’s Office is one of the main focuses of the siege of democracy,” said the president. “I’m going to culminate my mandate,” he said. “I will appoint the next Attorney General, I have no doubt,” he promised. “There are people who think that we are acting warm and that we do not dare to hit effects, but we are very clear about the correlation of forces and waiting for those elites is that we make some mistake that put us at the mercy of those institutions and that it leads to my dismissal,” he explained.
Arévalo, sociologist and diplomat, assumed the presidency in January 2024 not without problems, despite having won the popular vote in the second round of the general elections of August 2023. In a fight against the elements that in Guatemala can be true political hurricanes, Arévalo exceeded obstacles imposed by justice controlled by factual powers. The Public Ministry [Fiscalía]led by the attorney general and prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche, both sanctioned as anti -democratic actors for much of the international community, alleged irregularities in the registration of the president’s party, seed, and tried to suspend it. It was a ruling of the Constitutional Court of Guatemala, issued a month before the inauguration, which raided the way to the investiture. The highest court in the Central American country
The president as his main strength before an electorate who has been the norm in this Central American nation and some analysts in Guatemala affirm that it is already a triumph for the country that he assumed the position. Well he has questioned whether he thinks he can achieve that mission. “The first mission has been to prevent these elites from avoiding reverse the popular will expressed at the polls. It is a merit of the people, of indigenous leadership that threw into the streets and generated echo in a society, to claim democratic principles,” he said. “We do a job with the clear objective of the strengthening of democratic institutions in a context where these criminal political networks controlled everything and do not cease in that effort, but they have been weakening. That generates fear and aggression. It will be a complicated task, because we will have to face those efforts,” said Arévalo.
The president acknowledged that he never thought that the pressure pot he inherited were as hot as he has now in his hands. “We knew we were going to find shattered institutions, but we were not clear about the depth of the problem. People had no expectations, because there was an installed political cynicism,” he accepted.
On the prosecutor Porras, declared his main enemy, he has asked him if he has the institutional capacity to dismiss her. The president has been that yes, but that he has chosen to maintain the institutional lanes, until the end of the mandate of Porras next year. “It is possible to do so, but the Constitutional Court is the one that interprets and that can give it the shortest exit to end this period and place in front and say that the president has abused power,” he explained. “It is not my government that is at stake, but the possibility of this country recovering the institutions and continuing on a route that will take us from this gloomy swamp of corruption unleashed,” said Arévalo.
The president hopes that in the list that will be presented to choose the new prosecutor of the country there are people in full so that he can put in charge of that crucial institution “decent candidates who rescue the autonomy of the Public Ministry.”
Arévalo, however, governs with a fragile balance. The same powers that tried not to access power have continued to undermine their authority and dynamit their initiatives. Analysts consulted in Guatemala see it as an honest president, with good intentions, but unable to play under the dark rules of political and economic power, what is called the “corrupt pact.” “I think it can be a good president in Denmark,” said a source consulted in Guatemala. “It is incredible to remain as a victim in this system, because it has even allowed the Constitutional Court to develop executive powers that undermine their power, all before the president’s silence,” added this source that asked to protect his identity. Arévalo’s party, now disintegrated, how much 23 of the 160 seats in Congress, which complicates the approval of its reforms. The president has come to denounce before the Inter -American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) an alleged plan to attempt against his life by “state agents and particular individuals.”
Given that difficult panorama, well has prepared if it is possible to govern with an ethical posture. “Our commitment and struggle is to recover the public function as a duty of service. It has been very important to organization a project that proposed to gather ethics with politics, within the framework of a political system kidnapped by corruption. It was necessary president.
In his aspirations, he said, is to promote a broad reform of the justice system to avoid injustices such as the imprisonment of the journalist José Rubén Zamora, condemned by money laundering in what is considered a political persecution by human rights organizations. “We will do everything that is on our part to guarantee their conditions and your freedom is achieved. Hopefully it will be achieved before and not late, as it has happened with other people who have been criminalized spuriously. From the Executive we are recovering justice, and they know that the clock goes against them. We will reach the time when the institutions will be working,” promises the president of Guatemala.
