Lawfare Archive: A Victory for Guatemalan Democracy

Ah, what a coincidence.

While the bookstab and the ancient words are heard.

A Gata Christi's "The Models" is the ABC. Aeistings and Igeians, again on the year, exactly as we know. Huffwood Beck as Quarro, Malik Bauer as Hastings. Now, Turin, but with Ortebel.

I'm Marissa Wong in Turnet Lothar. With an episode from the Lothar Archive for June 7th, 2026. On May 28th, Guadamalan President Bernardo Arrevalu, agreed to carry out joint strikes with the US military to target drug trafficking groups and Guadamala, with operations to start as early as next month.

The deal is part of the Trump administration's broader effort

to press a lot in American countries to allow joint operations inside their territories,

to target cartels and organize crime across the Western Hemisphere. For today's Archive, I chose an episode from February 12th, 2024, in which Quintet Jurassic sat down on Valkov Mason, to discuss President Arrevalu's election and rise to power, and what his election may mean for the Latin American region and US Guatemala relations.

I'm Quintet Jurassic, a senior editor at Lothar, and this is the Lothar podcast. On January 15th, Bernardo Arrevalu took office as the new president of Guadamala. The transfer of power had been far from a short. After Arrevalu triumphed in August elections as an anti-corruption reformer, Guadamala's political elite did their best to throw legal obstacles in his way

and prevent him from taking power. His presidency represents a stunning victory for Guadamala democracy, which has long been under threat. But there are plenty of difficulties still ahead. To catch up on what's been happening in Guadamala, I spoke with Valkov Mason,

a Guadamala in sociologist and columnist. We discussed how Arrevalu triumphed, the significance of his victory for Guadamala in the region, and what all this might tell us about the ability of democracies

“to resist authoritarian backsliding around the world?”

If you're interested in more on this topic, you can also listen to my conversation from August, with Manuel Melendez Sanchez, about the election and at Avolo's victory. It's the Lothar podcast, February 12th, a victory for Guadamala in Democracy.

Valkov, thank you so much for joining to talk about what has been a very, very busy period in Guadamala in politics. This past August, the country elected a new president, Bernardo Arrevalu. He was sworn in as president on January 15th. That sounds pretty standard.

But in fact, it was really far from certain that Arrevalu would take office at all. What's been happening over the last few months in Guadamala? Hi, Quittas. Thank you for having me. And tumultuous is the word that I have been using to characterize what's been going on in Guadamala. We had a transition period that was marked by Lothar, named drop.

“But I think since the transition of power actually took place in January 15th,”

let's start from there. It was supposed to be on January 14th on Sunday. But despite his opponent's efforts to derail the transition,

Bernardo Arrevalu Alión was finally sworn in as Guadamala's president

in the early hours of that night. It was a chaotic inauguration that was delayed for hours by a last-dig attempt by Congress to weaken his authority. Bernardo Arrevalu Alión is known to the international press as an anti-corruption crusader. And he won the elections in August as he mentioned by a landslide.

And it was the first elections since they returned to democracy in 1985, in which the winning party did not have any client-alist networks. It was after nine hours after his inauguration was scheduled to start that Bernardo Arrevalu took the oath as a president, replacing conservative politician Alejandra Jammate,

whose government has been engulfed in corruption scandals. And in this latest in a series of legislative setbacks triggered by opponents under scored the challenges that Arrevalu is facing as a leader of Central America's most popular nation to which he has pledged to bring sweeping reforms and tackle the rising cost of living

“and violence which are the key drivers to migration to the United States.”

Arrevalu's opponents in Congress already moved to try to handcuff him

to spend on health care and education, which are two of his priorities.

“But finding resources to spend is just one of the many difficulties”

that Arrevalu is facing. More urgently, he faces multiple challenges from Guatemala's entrenched establishment which has aim to quickly cripple his ability to govern.

Guatemala is a country of 18 million people.

And, you know, Arrevalu has faced steady opposition from established political parties, such as the ones that represented the outgoing president Alejandra Jammate, and his victory has been many attempts to undermine his victory. So we're seeing how prosecutors and courts have been poised to stifle the winner's ability to govern.

Even since the beginning of the election, which were marked by questions of electoral integrity, because we saw how three prominent candidates were disqualified from running. Arrevalu emerged as this dark course running on a progressive anti-corruption platform

“with his party, Movimento Semia, and he quickly rose to the spotlight”

in this surprise first round second place finish in June.

And after that victory in June, where he moved to the second round, which I initially said that he won in a nice line, a lot of legal troubles started to emerge. Within days of his surprising first round achievement, a Guatemalan court agreed to suspend the results of the vote pending a review.

The results were upheld, but Movimento Semia, his party faced a suspension. After prosecutors alleged it had improperly gathered signatures to register a political party. And thereafter, from June to January 15th, we saw many attempts to undermine, as I said.

It's been law fair, text book definition, to the point that the international community had to come out to issue sanctions. We saw the largest mobilization in defense of democracy that the hemisphere has seen in this century. I'm a sociologist of social movements.

And I have been amazed to see that it was the indigenous peoples of Guatemala who actually led this call to action to defend the people's vote. So it might seem like a little bit convoluted because it is, especially because it has taken a long time for him to assume office. And as I recently argued in an opinion editorial for El Pais,

the newspaper in Spain, I developed it's not going to have a honeymoon period.

As I said, the 18 million Guarmanes have of which are of a voting age,

are a second tired of the current dominant coalition and the political elite. So the stakes are really high, especially giving the immigration issues that are now being put on the table in another election, which is the US election happening in November. The president, the newly elected president,

now inaugurated at Ewa Law, is going to have to deal with a lot of moving parts. That's a great overview, and I want to make sure that we dig into a lot of the different things that you've set out on the table there. Before we get into what happened after the vote was actually counted, and Ewa Law was declared the victor.

“I want to set the scene a little bit more, who is this guy?”

You know, he was not expected to win, I think it's fair to say. Movimento semia, his political party is also, as you say, hasn't been around for particularly long. What's going on here, and why has this victory become such a topic of contention that it's generated all of this pushback from the Guadamalum political establishment?

Yeah, so when you look at it from a macro point of view, before we dig into who Bernardo Arroyo Arroyo Leonis, because I think from a historical perspective, he's a very significant figure in Latin American history, and I'll go into that in a bit. But when you look at the results from the 2020 Latino warometer survey,

you see that Guadamalum had one of the lowest levels of trust and support for the democracy in the region among the electorate. Only 37% of citizens considered democracy to be preferable to any other form of government, and 65% of them were not satisfied with how it operated in Guatemala.

believe the right to participate in political life is fully guaranteed.

“And this atmosphere of optimism for change that”

had been present for the elections in 2015, have faded by 2020. So come the election of 2023, you have three favorites in the election.

The first is Suri Rios, who is a conservative politician,

and is the daughter of a former military dictator, different Rios Mont, you had Sandra Torres, who was known as a social conservative, who laid it pivoted to a much more hard-line conservativeism in the second round of the 2023 election.

She was a former first lady of Alvaro Colom, from 2008 to 2012, and she is a three-time presidential candidate. And the other candidate that was emerging in the initial polls in 2023 was Edmond Mulett, who is a career diplomat, who had worked for the UN, and had led missions in Haiti and in Africa.

“All of these three candidates used extensive client-alistic practices.”

So what do I mean by that? These people who come to their meetings were offered various gifts, even as some of money, in the case of Suri Rios. So political party activists circulated among the ranks, taking down the names of addresses of those who are present

in the primary beneficiaries in the event of their candidate's victory. So as you see, both buying is a very common practice in Guatemala's elections, and it often goes unpunished.

So when the first round took place in June of 2023,

we saw a record number of invalid ballots, where more than 24% of the ballots were either spoiled, or left blank entirely. So this was attributed to the distrust of the electoral system among the electorate,

“including the disqualification of some presidential candidates at the beginning of the process.”

So out of this sort of miasma of distrust and apathy comes Moemento semia in Bernardo de Arrevalo. And now let me tell you a little bit about who they are. First, we need to understand that the last great social movement that took place in Guatemala later dates back to 2015. Back then, we had a united nation's back anti-corruption commission,

called the Commission International against the Empunidad in Guatemala, or CSIG, and through extensive investigations, Guatemala's found out through CSIG, that then President and Vice President Otto Perez Molina and Roxana Valetti, were at the helm of a massive fraud which involved paying kickbacks

in the ports of the country. After several weeks of protests, multitudinary protests that were gathered in Guatemala City and other urban centers of the country, they finally came down.

And they were put into preventive prison, the former President and Vice President agreed to be set to trial.

And this was the very first time that Guatemala's felt that their voice was being heard,

especially in the 21st century. During these protests, many student activists, members from the middle class, you know, people that work and as small business owners, teachers, nurses, that work in the health sector,

and especially university professors and intellectuals, they saw themselves reflected in the citizen movement, and they decided to organize a discussion group that later became known as Movimento semia. Among the original founders was Bernardo Arevalo Elio,

who is the son of Juan José Arevalo, Bermejo, who is an icon of the Latin American Progressive Movement. The first democratically elected President of Guatemala in 1945, who was a social studies professor in Argentina and then came back to Guatemala after another sort of social movement,

deposed the dictator at the time Jorge Rico. Bernardo Arevalo was actually born in exile in Uruguay because his father and his family had to flee after the counter-revolution, which we'll talk about later when we address

the role of the United States this time around. And he is a sociologist by training. He has a PhD that he got in Spain.

He speaks, I think, like, four fluent languages.

“And when semia finally decided to participate”

in their first election cycle in 2019,

he was elected one of the first cohort of congresspeople for semia. He was the head of the party of the legislative block during that first period. And he was selected as the ideal candidate because of his moderation. He's known to have worked in fields of peacekeeping

and he's a good sort of problem soldier, or at least that's the reputation that preceded him. When semia was seen as this option that was organically producing the leadership that was very much aware of what the structural deficiencies

of Guatemala were given their emergence as a party after the anti-corruption process of 2015, the electorate in 2023 placed their hopes in him and in semia's programmatic agenda. Because the Guatemalan party system, as I mentioned many times already,

is characterized by not having real ties ideological or electoral. It's done through vote buying, is done through favors. So ideology or even an agenda with specific public policies

has never been in the minds of Guatemala.

So that's also partly what explains why one in four votes were blank or spoiled in the first round. So he sort of embodies this spirit of change. And right now he's the most personable and popular politician in the country.

As I've said, it's very apathetic towards politics. And he has risen to the occasion.

“I think he's very well aware of the moment that Guatemala is facing”

after, you know, ever since 2015, after these anti-corruption protests that were historic, we've phased in a quick democratic backsline. It's almost like what happened in 1944. Between 1944 and 1954, we had the 10 years of spring

as Guatemalan's like to romantically call it. What follow that was the counter revolution. Many of us will be familiar with the 36-year armed conflict that was marked by counter insurgency, scorched earth military campaigns that many believe including myself amounted to crimes of genocide

against a shield Maya populations or 200,000 people were killed during these years of bloodshed. The similar thing happened after 2015. A lot of the critics of the government had been forced to flee, a lot of criminalization, especially from the authorities tasked

“with serving justice in Guatemala, has been carried out.”

The Ministerio Público, which is the public prosecutor's office, has been conducting this law fair that I've mentioned at the beginning, prosecuting candidates, and the extreme judicialization of the elections was the culmination of these eight years

of democratic backsline. So Bernardo Arrevalo comes as this beacon of hope and in Guatemala and should have turned to him in the second round in an overwhelming fashion. He wins by over 25 points difference

and over a million votes.

So it is very clear that this marks a new era for Guatemala and politics. It is a watershed moment. So you mentioned this idea of the judicialization of the election, which is something

that the organization of American states voiced concern about during the period in which the campaign was going on. Before we get to what happened after Arrevalo wins, can you just give a brief overview of what you mean by that

and what that law fair? And we appreciate the shout out. It looked like in practice against Arrevalo and move me a tostimia. Yes, of course.

So the ministerial public prosecutor's office has been orchestrating legal persecution against president Arrevalo and his running mate, Karine Rera, of pretty much non-existent crimes.

and these actions have sparked

“the domestic and international firestorm”

and critics consider that these are efforts to overturn the electoral victory.

The first thing that happened was

after moving into semia, won this surprising first round. They were efforts to suspend the party. As I mentioned, a judge, criminal judge by the name of Federioriana,

who is an important protagonist here in this story, alleges through the use of the organized crime law that Moimintus Semia was fraudulently constituted. They forged signatories at the beginning of their efforts

to become a political party. They used fake names, some of the people that signed these documents that are handed to the electoral authorities where either dead or were not real.

At this point in time, we still haven't seen the evidence. It's been almost seven months now since this campaign started and unfortunately the public

is still a little bit in the dark about what this really looks like for the prosecutors. Who have been accused of on democratic actions. For example, the United States has previously alleged the special prosecutor Rafael Kuruchiche

“who is another important protagonist in our story.”

The Secretary General of the Ministerio Polico, of the Public Prosecutor's Office, I Helpiné, have obstructed investigations and have turned them into acts of corruption to further their political aims.

And the aim is very simple. Initially, they didn't want Semia

on the second round of the elections

and they failed. After Arrevalo won in an online slide, they wanted to invalidate their results. They also failed. Then they raided.

Guatemala and prosecutors raided their requests that Arrevalo be stripped of his political immunity, which could open him up to prosecution. They failed that as well. But they went even further,

“raising the prospect of the entire presidential election”

being overturned to these findings. Prosecutors have even gone as far as starting the Supreme election electoral tribunal itself, which is the highest authority when it comes to elections in Guatemala. They have ordered raids on his offices after the elections

that resulted in sealed ballot boxes being opened. And this was a very traumatizing thing to witness for quite a month, who, you know, for decades experienced actual electoral fraud when the military dictatorships were in power.

So watching these being live streamed for everyone to see how prosecutors were coming in into the building and essentially taking the boxes into their cars with their faces covered. It looked like an institutional act because it was.

So all these, when you see all these attempts at undermining his electoral victory, you get a social response, which is what sort of moved me and my other Guatemala to think that we were in a at a breaking point.

The national strike that launched in October 2nd. It carried on for 105 days, and if you are wondering why so long, it was because it was until his inauguration. So from October 2nd,

till January 15th, Indigenous authorities camped outside of the ministerial public, protesting and demanding that attorney general Consuelo Borras, Special Prosecutor Rafael Kurochice,

and Judge Fredioreiana, would step down.

This was an incredible thing to witness

because when you realize that this is a country that who's historically marginalized populations are the one leading the call to defend the same institutions that have rejected them,

The protests were mostly peaceful, but they involved blocking streets.

“So during October, we saw how the country”

was grounded to a halt. All the highways and the country were blocked by these sort of spontaneous and community managed blockades. But they were all led

by a powerful generation's old assembly called

the Guarenta Yuchokantones of Totorika Pan, who is based in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. So in essence, despite the repeated attempts to not only violate the Constitution, but this regard any democratic norm that Guantamala

as a state has abided by since it's returned to the democracy in 1985, the population, and especially indigenous peoples, led this incredible mobilization to defend electoral integrity, to defend the right to vote,

and to reject authoritarianism. So in terms of the timeline,

“we have Adevilo wins the second round in August.”

There's sort of this backlash where, as you say, there are these investigations. There is an effort to strip him of immunity from criminal prosecution to open him up to that, potentially you end up with this massive protest movement

in the general strike that goes from October through January. And as you kind of said at the beginning, there's this moment at the very, very end

where Adevilo, it finally seems like he's going

to be sworn in, and then there's this sort of last minute machination where it's all pushed back because of a sort of final scramble, which is also quite cinematic in its own way. What happened there?

Yeah, the queue coalition, because not only has Adevilo called it a slow motion coup or a technical coup, but the organization of American states, the way us, the European Union,

many heads of state in Latin America, including President Lula Silvain Brazil, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico, and many others have called this a coup.

It's not like they used to do them

in the 20th century with tanks and bayonets, but rather through law fair, again, through courts and judges, and very intricate uses of the law. What happened in January,

or especially in the weekend of the inauguration, was that the party became sort of the focus of the coup waters. They realized that Adevilo was going to a sum office, given the international pressure

that had been exerted on Guadamalan, that there was, for them, this was already a lost battle. So what they try to do is to go back to this original accusation from Judge Federioriana,

and say that semia actually is no longer a party. So what that means is that they have no political rights in Congress. The 23 elected representatives, that had won seats in the new legislature,

would have to assume as an independent block. And this is why the inauguration was delayed for so long. This became a sort of bitter quarrel between the outgoing legislature

and the incoming legislature. The outgoing legislature is the one that's supposed to hand the baton to the new one, sort of inaugurates the president.

“That's how the law works and what the money.”

So there was this huge fear that if semia lost its party status that there would no longer be able to vote for a board of directors or the executive director of the legislature

and that the new opposition or the former sort of ruling coalition would decide not to inaugurate anyone. So this was the fear. Then through these sort of legal technicalities

they were going to be able to stop this transition of power. Fortunately for us, Democrats, who believe that this is the cornerstone

from the looser party or the outgoing regime

“and to the winning party or the new administration.”

That didn't happen. And what we saw was, again, going back to the very historic scenes that we witnessed recently in January. We saw that despite this egregious protocol delays

in Bernardo Arrevalo,

was finally able to receive the presidential sash

from a party colleague of his, semi-petta salvades. Who finally was able to garner enough bones to win the board of directors or the leadership position in Congress.

And so he was able to sort of pass or officially inaugurate him. And why do I say this is historic? Because nearly eight decades ago,

“when Arrevalo's father Juan José Arrevalo”

assumed the first democratically elected presidency, he was sworn in by the young president of the legislature at the time. Manuel Galich, who akin to congressman Samuel Perez, was 31 years old and a former student activist.

So this sort of these echoes or these sort of similarities, these parallels from history were very moving to witness. Unfortunately, after this inauguration that how had all this symbolic scenes, the party was suspended again.

This is one a new player who at first

was against the coup and now is sort of stifling or undermining Arrevalo's governing capacities showed up and this is the constitutional court. The constitutional court said that the legislative elections for the leadership roles had to be repeated

“because in fact, the political organization”

known as semia is suspended. So this, what the constitutional court, which is Guatemala's highest court endorsed, is pretty much a mortal blow to the electoral and party system that made the democratic transition possible.

The SESA, as is known in Guatemala, resolved that the legislators elected by semia

cannot be part of a legislative block.

And that is why the Board of Directors of the Congress has to refrain from issuing provisions or even putting the issue up for discussion to reactivate their status. And this seems like an obvious attempt again, handcuffing Arrevalo's ability to govern.

Not only is he facing now the uphill task of ruling without an effective party in Congress or no representation because semia is now just an independent legislative block that can no longer preside over the commissions

in Congress or even attempt to gain a position in the leadership roles. But also, the Attorney General Counselor Boris has refused to me with the president, even though he's requesting that she steps down.

So when you have two of the three organs of the state against you, it's going to be a very complicated scenario ahead. This seems like a conspiracy to dismantle democratic legitimacy. And I don't think it has an end in sight

because the coup mongers, which is a miniscule group, whose fortune has financed the depredation of resources, will continue to seek to undermine the will of the citizens and reject any seeming attempt ever form.

So this anti-democratic mafia that isolated Guatemala from the world stage will keep instrumentalizing the ministerial public and the court of constitutionality to maintain age-old privileges

and immunity for the now weakened dominant political coalition. I have to say, from where I'm sitting in the United States, the idea of legislature at the last minute engaging in some kind of creative reading of loopholes to prevent a new president from coming into office.

Sounds uncomfortably familiar to what we experienced on January 6, 2021. And you actually, you wrote an essay this past summer in the publication Blubasos, comparing the authoritarian threat in the US

on January 6, also the attack on Congress in Brazil

to hold on to power.

And what's been happening in Guatemala

and there are interesting contrast to be drawn between Brazil and the US in terms of the strength of responses to the attempted seizure of power. But I want to focus on the distinction you draw between what those coup attempts looked like in Brazil

in the US and what they looked like in Guatemala where this effort to block out envelope from power and now to sort of handcuff him hasn't involved at any point of violent mob attacking the governing body.

But as you argue, it is a effort to overthrow the constitutional order. So I'm curious to hear your thoughts about that distinction. Why things look different in Guatemala?

Should we understand this sort of effort

to roll back democracy as something qualitatively different in this sense that it sort of a elite rejection of a democratic movement rather than a sort of mob that itself has some level of popular support?

“Yeah, I think I've always been very curious”

to see how these phenomena play out. And I think you're onto something. You know, elites have entrenched interests to dismantle investigations. It seems like a cynical effort to protect the status quo

and sometimes they cite alleged persecutorial abuses or the dubious technicalities that we're talking as a pretext. And you know, what has mounted throughout the region seems to be motivated by political violence

and, you know, using law fair to target an individual or an ideology. Sometimes this has come to me that is particularly attacking individuals on the left. Some of that might be a little bit nonsensical

because, you know, there's countries where the right has recently been in power. Maybe Peru and Panama and 2019 come to mind. Conservative politicians have then once who went to jail, right, if left this politicians

are feeling prisons everywhere.

“Let's remember that the pink tide dominated South America”

for the last decade plus. And in Brazil, as you say, the reaction to these very sort of egregious attempts disrupting the constitutional order have been very different to the ones that occurred

in the United States. But I think it's worthy to compare it to Guatemala

because ultimately what we see from these three cases

should have very authoritarian populist conservative right wing ideological notions of politics being at the forefront of these arbitrary use of law. And it's very concerning because everything happens under the guise of legality.

Everything that is happening right now in Guatemala is supported by the top court. And that's why it gives it a little bit of a semblance of legitimacy. Even though, you know, you look at public opinion polls

and all of the institutions of the state are largely rejected. The fact that it is the ministerial public or the corte constitutionality who are the ones sort of carrying these attempts

are quite different from what we saw in Brazil and in the United States. You had to losing presidential candidates who rallied their basis and sort of the masses took the clarion call

to call to act upon these grievances. Since the outgoing president of Guatemala who many believe is true, an integral protagonist in these orchestrated campaign to delegitimize Timia and Aravalu

since he was one of the most popular figures of this century.

“I think he left office with something like”

11% approval rating. I think it's fair to question what the real motivation is. And so I go back to the beginning, right? Like, if we're using the belief

that it is an entrenched interest to dismantle investigations that might disrupt the status quo, I think that this is where Guatemala comes into the case study that

should be looked into by political scientists

concerned with questions of power. How far is a coalition willing to go to keep these privileges

“and to maintain these structural advantages”

that they have in their favor? The thing with Samia and with Aravalu since nobody saw them coming, they were able to participate and they won using these institutions

that are flawed,

but ultimately paid off for them.

If they were seen as a threat at the beginning of the electoral cycle, they would not have been even able to participate. So that's a mistake from the ruling coalition. They should have known better

in a more colloquial way. That a reformist candidate was the real threat to the system. So as I kind of hinted in pointing to the US and Brazil,

we're in a moment of broad uncertainty around the world and in the Americas, specifically when it comes to

“the stability of democracies and democratic”

backsliding. Obviously, the United States

is going through a prolonged crisis

on this front right next door to Guatemala. El Salvador is sort of slipping further and further into outright dictatorship under President Night of Cali. The Aravalu story

depending on where you end it can seem like good news or kind of mixed news. You know, the good guys won, maybe Guatemala and democracy sort of persevered,

but now is facing this real persistent threat going forward. So I'm curious how you would kind of situate this story in context of this broader concern over democratic backsliding

and authoritarian movements around the world. Yes, I think Guatemala may

“emerge as a very success in promoting democracy.”

And you're right. Aravalu largely reached the inauguration day because of the determination of Guatemala and citizens fed up with corruption. But you as diplomats played a key role

in one of the Biden administration's most aggressive campaigns to show up democracy in the hemisphere. I think U.S. officials recognized

that averting this meltdown in Guatemala was critical.

The central American country is a major transit route for cocaine and irregular migrants. So when the administration, the Biden administration had already watched the democracy crumble in Ikan. I went inside of Alor.

They probably feared that the trend was spreading. So when we see career U.S. bureaucrats with decades of experience in Latin America, targeting Guatemalan politicians and influential business people

with a blizzard of sanctions and stern public statements and quiet arms twisting, it all makes sense. We saw a procession of senior state department officials visiting Guatemala to show support for Aravalu

since his victory in August 2023, even President Biden praised his victory and going as far as the Pentagon, who recognized that I quote here the importance of maintaining democracy

and stability in Guatemala, close quotes. And not only the U.S. or special agencies or departments based in Washington, but also the European Union and the Organization of American States,

which had monitored the elections. And they also demanded the results to be respected. So we've seen how this coalition to defend democracy was led domestically by indigenous peoples but the international community again,

and I don't want to make this sound like it was only them. They made this possible. I remember when in late December, U.S. lawmakers like Senators Tim Cane from Virginia, Pete Welch from Vermont,

Jeff Merckley from Oregon, the all-pressed members of Jammatei's cabinet to guarantee a democratic transfer of power. And apparently they agreed, but it was an hour later,

and a prosecutor from the Ministerio Público, the results of the August elections, Newham Boyne. So the State Department came out swinging, and they announced that it was canceling visas for nearly 300 Guatemalans.

This included around two thirds of the members of Congress and some hard-line business executives. But you're right. I mean, human rights advocates,

say that the Biden administrations,

but they might be admirable,

“they might be a little bit at odds with its actions elsewhere,”

especially in Israel or because U.S. officials continue to publicly praise relations with Naive Buchale, even if he's led a crackdown on gangs that is widely criticized for its brutality. So it seems like the United States

doesn't think it's worth fighting with someone who is that popular. So the U.S. relationship with Guatemala will continue to become more prominent, because in the past decades, due to the shifting migration pattern,

and as I said, giving that the country is not only an origin for migrants, but also a transit point for others

that are coming from further south.

Over 200,000 encounters with Guatemans occurred at the U.S. Mexico border between 2021, 2022 and 2023. So this structural inequality you added to political stability,

and that will significantly drive immigration. And of course, this proportionately impacts indigenous communities who are burdened by state abandonment and corruption. So without the international communities,

diplomatic sanctions,

“I think we would be in a different place right now.”

I find that particularly interesting because obviously, as we've alluded to before, if you say the words United States Guatemala democracy, I think, before the last few months,

a lot of people would have thought of U.S. interventions in mid-century against Guatemala and democracy. And so there's a bit of an irony there, but it's also the case

that the Trump administration sort of allowed a cystic, anti-corruption commission to fall by the wayside. And that's been widely criticized. But I think it also points to,

if we're looking at this dynamic that you're describing as a kind of international alliance of democracies, I also wonder what that means in terms of if democracies are helping

hold one another up. What happens in a different U.S. administration that has different political priorities if that pressure is no longer on Guatemala and elites, is there a danger

that, at a level of will, lose the momentum that he's gathered?

“Yeah, I think that is a very latent fear”

among Guatemala, especially those who keep tabs on U.S. politics. We're very well aware that immigration is going to be the centerpiece of the Republican sort of programmatic agenda

for 2024, and we're very familiar with dealing with very hard-line immigration spokespeople, like Stephen Miller, and the people that were at

the Department of Homeland Security, immigration and customs enforcement and customs and border patrol. You mentioned that during the Trump era, we had the beginning or a coincident

with the democratic backslide period in Guatemala, and I want to point out that it was during that time

that Guatemala became a safe third country,

which is where asylum seekers would be sent to wait for their court date until a judge was ready to see them and hear their case. And this happened with the Jimmy Morales administration,

that this comedian turned politician with no experience in public administration that capitalized this anti-politics mood that stirred Guatemala after the 2015 anti-corruption protest, and he sent his then chancellor

to the Foreign Affairs Minister to the White House to sign these paperwork in essence, giving away the sovereignty of Guatemala and becoming the southernmost border of the United States. And now with this,

when you speak or when you hear migrants coming from Venezuela or from Ecuador or from other Central American countries, they're most fearful of going through Guatemala, because not only are security forces demanding bribes, but they're a multiplicity of criminal organizations

So it's extremely dangerous to go through Guatemala,

“not only because we've seen the deterioration of these institutions”

that are supposed to serve immigrants, but the fact that now, well, during the Trump administration, we sort of committed to that vision of immigration politics. Again, the flow of migrants doesn't seem to be stopping,

and the only solution for that is integral development and community-based projects. You know, funds that militarize these borders are only going to lead more human suffering. And this is what concerns us the most

when we look into the future, and we see that what my come is, you know, family separation on steroids. We realize that maybe we're not out of the, out of the woods yet in terms of our relationship with the United States.

So with the caveat, as you say, that a lot depends on what happens in the United States and in November, what are you going to be watching in a revolution administration in Guatemala and politics over the next few months?

What are signs that, you know, things are going well versus going badly? Yeah, I think the irrelevant administration is already indebted to the courage and determination of the people in a situation of great volatility and conflict between state bodies and that's indigenous peoples.

It's success would not only greatly benefit the rule of law in Guatemala,

but I think it would send a powerful message to the region

and maybe even the world, if I am so bold, that liberal democracy remains a viable option in the countries of Northern Central America. And this would demonstrate to Latin Americans that it is possible to challenge this time of school

while maintaining at the same time, these democratic values.

“So that's why cautious optimists like myself”

have begun discussing that there's a new dawn in Guatemala with this post-conflict political model how it had already cultivated so much difference among young progressives. We see this sort of performance centrism

filled the void of a non-partisan electorate. It produced an unlikely social democratic winner among a sea of conservative and far-right options. So this insistence on seizing politics in its usual must be reflected going forward,

especially concerning indigenous peoples. What I would like to see is, you know, at Evalo, being very stern about his commitment against corruption. And that means that he needs to continue

the confrontation with the attorney general. He has already requested her to step down. And even though she's not hearing any of these requests or attending any of the meetings, it seems that she no longer has the power that she used

to last year when the president was on her side. On the other hand, I would like to see a transparent government with been subjected to eight years of secrecy of hermatic sort of communication between the citizenry and the state.

So I would appreciate that these channels of communication are open once again. And in regards to these civil liberties, I would like for freedom of expression to be a reality once again.

I used to write for a daily newspaper called "El Perioico",

which was a very critical voice of the government.

And I'm talking in the past tense here because unfortunately, the Perioico had to close after regime pressures. And its editor, José Ruan Zamora, was wrongfully imprisoned.

Until today, he remains in solitary confinement in a military prison, with only one hour a day of sunlight. And it's been over 500 days that he's been there. So I'm really looking forward

to these situations being resolved. I believe that journalism in Guatemala has been through dark times, and this is one of them. But without these transparency and openness and willingness to speak to the people,

I would expect that they are a little presidency would do that.

“I think society would at least feel less surveilled.”

Less pushed to the extreme of self-censorship or even, as it happened with many of my journalist colleagues,

we see very specific task forces, for example,

“being assembled to resolve this issue of freedom of the press”

and freedom of speech.

And hopefully we can have the Perioico back again in print.

Let's leave it there. Thank you so much for joining. Thank you so much for the invitation.

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