Guatemala prosecutors threaten to annul victory of President-elect Arevalo
Al Jazeera :
Guatemala’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal has declared the results of this year’s presidential race “unalterable” after public prosecutors openly questioned whether to annul the vote.
The prosecutors’ statements sparked a domestic and international firestorm, marking what critics consider the latest – and most directly stated – effort to overturn President-elect Bernardo Arevalo’s election victory.
The Organisation of American States (OAS), a regional election watchdog, went so far as to condemn the statements as “an attempted coup d’etat”.
“The actions and statements of prosecutors Rafael Curruchiche and Leonor Morales constitute an alteration of the country’s constitutional order, a breach of the rule of law and a violation of the human rights of the population of their country,” it said in a statement on Friday.
“The attempt to annul this year’s general elections constitutes the worst form of democratic breakdown and the consolidation of a political fraud against the will of the people.”
The latest chapter in Guatemala’s ongoing election turmoil erupted on Friday with a press conference led by Curruchiche, Morales and Angel Pineda Avila, the secretary-general of the Public Ministry.
Prosecutors with the Public Ministry have been accused of undemocratic actions in the past.
The United States, for instance, has previously alleged that Curruchiche and Pineda “obstructed investigations into acts of corruption” to further their political aims.
In Friday’s briefing, the prosecutors reiterated their request that Arevalo be stripped of his political immunity, a step that could open him up to prosecution.
They accused him of improperly gathering signatures for his presidential campaign, as well as mishandling political funds.
But they went a step further, raising the prospect of the presidential election being overturned as the result of their findings.
“Today is a historic day for democratic institutions,” Pineda said in the press conference, defending his colleagues’ work as “impartial” and denying any intent to interfere in the election results.
But the backlash to the press conference was swift.
Blanca Alfaro, the head of the Supreme Election Tribunal, a government body charged with maintaining election integrity, quickly responded with a news conference of her own, refuting the possibility that a new election could be held.
“I would like to ratify, in my role as magistrate and in a personal capacity, that the results are valid, official and unalterable,” she said.
She also affirmed that Arevalo and his vice president, Karin Herrera, would take office as planned.
“At this moment, there is no way that the Supreme Electoral Tribunal is going to repeat the elections.”