HRW, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights (RFKHR) organization expressed their concern on Wednesday because they consider that the electoral process takes place in “a context of deterioration of human, civil and electoral”.
In April, US Department of State Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian Nichols stated that “democracy depends on all citizens choosing their leaders from among all qualified candidates without arbitrary barriers, exclusion or intimidation,” in allusion to the Guatemalan elections.
For some analysts, since 2019 this nation has experienced a democratic setback due to the early end of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), ordered by former President Jimmy Morales (2016-2020).
As a UN entity, the CICIG uncovered emblematic cases of corruption and led to the resignation in 2015 of then-President Otto Pérez (2012-2015), sentenced for customs fraud.
Under Giammattei’s tenure, several former prosecutors who worked with the CICIG began to be captured, most accused of alleged abuse of authority.
The criminal proceedings, considered “revenge”, were opened at the request of Attorney General Consuelo Porras, close to Giammattei and included by Washington in 2021 on a list of “corrupt” actors, for which she was sanctioned after firing a prosecutor. who tried to investigate the president.
In Guatemala there is “a corporate dictatorship with economic, corruption and even organized crime interests,” declared the former UN rapporteur for freedom of expression, Frank La Rue, who compared the situation to a play.
With information from AFP, EFE and Reuters