2024-01-15 07:01:00
Although Colombian President Gustavo Petro arrived this Sunday to inaugurate the social democrat Bernardo Arévalo as the new president of Guatemala, apparent sabotage by the opposition in that country’s Congress frustrated the investiture. At the time of going to press, the new president had not yet taken office.
Amid the tension in the streets, Arévalo suffered another political blow because Congress reduced the room for maneuver of its deputies. The outgoing parliament, controlled by the right, decided to ignore the 23 deputies of the Semilla Movement, from Arévalo, as a bench for the new legislature, by virtue of a judicial suspension of that party for alleged irregularities in its creation.
The discussions around the Semilla bench hindered the installation of the new Congress, which is the one that must swear in Arévalo as president. The presidential inauguration ceremony, around 10:00 at night (Colombian time), was five hours late.
“I am already here at the National Theater for the investiture ceremony,” Arévalo declared in a message on the social network
The uncertainty over the investiture caused representatives of the United States, the OAS, the European Union and Latin American presidents present in Guatemala to urge Congress to transfer command to Arévalo.
The 65-year-old sociologist, former diplomat and philosopher, Arévalo, unexpectedly went to the second presidential round in June with a conservative candidate allied with the ruling party, whom he comfortably defeated with 60% of the votes for his anti-corruption message.
Since then, Arévalo and the Semilla Movement have faced a judicial offensive that he denounced as a “coup d’état,” behind which would be the political and economic elite that for decades has governed the country’s destinies.
The Prosecutor’s Office tried to withdraw his immunity as president-elect, dismantle his progressive party and annul the elections, arguing that there were electoral anomalies.
In response, President Petro claimed that the Guatemalan Prosecutor’s Office, “as in Peru and Colombia, has had an adverse attitude towards the Presidency and has even tried to imprison the vice president elected by the people (…) Arévalo’s party , the majority, have taken away its legal status.”
Protests and popular discontent
The delay in the investiture unleashed unrest among hundreds of Arévalo’s followers, among them many indigenous people, who, amidst jostling with the police, made their way to approach the parliamentary headquarters. “The people are fed up with so much abuse, theft, corruption and so much humiliation of the people of Guatemala,” indigenous leader Alida Vicente, 43, told the AFP news agency during a march in the center of the capital. According to Arévalo, “the most urgent thing” is to recover the institutions “co-opted by the corrupt,” but “the most important thing” is to work for social development.
#Tension #Guatemala #due #eventful #inauguration #president