MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Guatemalan President-elect says there is a coup in the making

“The justice system is being used to violate justice itself,” Arévalo stressed

Guatemalan President-elect Bernardo Arévalo de León Friday said there was “a coup d'état in progress” in his country, with many organizations wanting to “break the constitutional order and violate democracy” by attacking him and his Semilla Movement party.

Arévalo singled out Attorney General Consuela Porras, the Congressional Board, and a criminal judge behind the plot. “These actions constitute a coup d'état, which is promoted by the institutions that should guarantee Justice in our country,” said Arévalo, who was elected on Aug. 20 and is due to take office on Jan. 14, 2024.

Prosecutor Rafael Curruchichi (head of the Special Prosecutor's Office Against Impunity - FECI), and “other corrupt actors who refuse to accept the result” seek to “break the constitutional order and violate democracy,” Arévalo insisted during a press conference.

He added that the coup was being “carried out step by step, through spurious, illegitimate, and illegal actions, in different instances, whose objective is to prevent the inauguration of the elected authorities, including the president.”

Arévalo said that the actions taken by the Attorney General's Office were an attempt to circumvent the popular will and asked all Guatemalans for “their support” to “defend the most sacred thing which is the vote.”

Persecutions against Arévalo and his party began before the July 25 first round. Since July 12, the Public Prosecutor's Office and Judge Fredy Orellana have tried to cancel the party for an alleged case of false signatures during the party's creation in 2018.

While the Supreme Electoral Tribunal confirmed Arévalo's win on Aug. 28, Judge Orellana ordered Semilla provisionally suspended from the Citizen Registry, after which the Congressional Board of Directors of the Congress declared lawmakers from that political force as “independent” on Aug. 31.

In this scenario, the Organization of American States (OAS) warned Friday that “democratic stability” was in danger due to judiciary meddling in the electoral process and granted Secretary-General Luis Almagro a “greater authority” to monitor the Guatemalan transition to Arévalo from Alejandro Giammattei.