2023-11-10 08:04:29
The Constitutional Court, together with Congress, the Supreme Court of Justice, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal and the Public Ministry, suddenly aware of the 64 days left until the end of the current government, have placed themselves in a rapid obstacle course to fulfill long-forgotten tasks. The CC yesterday rejected the extension appeal presented by the deputies to delay the election of the CSJ magistrates, who have been around for around three and a half years due to lack of substitutes. The Legislative Body now has 20 days to fulfill that obligation, after having delayed it 249 times because its presidency placed the issue at the last place in sessions with extremely long agendas.
The rapid race to complete obligatory but maliciously delayed tasks cannot fail to surprise.
Mario Antonio Sandoval
The matter has been further complicated by the CC order. Congress now claims not to have at hand the suggestions of the Nomination Commission, also presented three and a half years ago, and that is why it had requested the extension, but now it has the mandatory date of November 30, when the session ends. or January 15, if there are extraordinary ones. Furthermore, the change of Congress on January 14 at 2 p.m. makes this situation a greater mystery because this new legislature, in many cases, has never heard the names to choose between 26 candidates for the CSJ and 135 among 270 to in order to integrate the magistracies of the entire country. This eliminates any doubt about the causes for this race of decisions.
It is not paranoia to think about the intention to stop the change of government for any reason. The CSJ has questionable legitimacy due to its permanence. The country’s presidential band can be sent to the president of Congress and if the new Legislative branch so decides, it takes the necessary actions to declare the first election null and void, with the result that there is a need to elect a new presidential duo, in the absence of the winner on August 20. As I expressed in Wednesday’s article because I have no doubt, this situation would lead to the national presidency to two people defeated in either of the two rounds. Nobody would have voted for them. The question is why carry out a new electoral process at the end of the next government, if the elections are a mockery when the official candidate does not win?
If this decision of the CC is assumed as a result that is impossible to change because the laws applied do not have a dedication, the additional analysis needs to direct attention to the results of its application, as it benefits or affects not one or several people, but the entire nation. The long term of elections would end with many problems and a need for improvements, especially in the last five cases, but at least with the possibility of citizens to vote in favor of a new candidate, even if he is unknown, in order to avoid the arrival of a rejected politician whose career and/or image is even worse. If there is a popular saying, it would say “better the bad, even if it is unknown, than the worst, precisely because it is already well known.”
As a result of all this series of surprises, there is really no certainty of the change of government as voted by the participants in the second round. This causes personal effects in despair and regret for the way in which Guatemala has become an international pariah, with the now not so distant possibility of being expelled from the Organization of American States, even if it is allowed to remain in the United Nations. Closing oneself to the blind position of rejecting the shame of this will at least place our country behind Haiti and any state or private effort to eliminate it will be in vain. Once that happens, the infernal consequences are unthinkable, but certain.
#order #alter #change