The Supreme Electoral Tribunal of Guatemala revoked yesterday the suspension of the Movimiento Semilla party, with which the academic Bernardo Arévalo de León won the presidency on August 20. The decision keeps Arévalo's party alive. The court also asks the three powers of the State to "respect the popular will expressed at the polls."
The Seed Movement party was suspended on August 28 by the Citizens Registrar of the same Supreme Electoral Tribunal. That opinion caused the board of directors of the country's Congress to ignore the party two days later. The suspension was the last of the obstacles that the party in government, which lost the elections, and the Prosecutor's Office have interposed to prevent the victory of Bernardo Arévalo from materializing.
The Organization of American States (OAS) has denounced the situation and the candidate himself stated on Friday that Guatemala is in a virtual situation of a "coup d'état." Arévalo de León openly pointed to the attorney general and head of the Public Ministry, Consuelo Porras, as one of the main promoters of this situation, as well as prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche.
The investiture of Arévalo de León is scheduled for January 14, replacing the current president, Alejandro Giammattei.
Arévalo was elected on August 28 in the second round against the official candidate, Sandra Torres Casanova. Arévalo de León obtained 2.4 million votes –59% of the total–, the highest figure in the history of Guatemala, while Torres accumulated 1.5 million. Abstention was 55%.
Arévalo de León's victory marks a break in the recent history of Guatemala, a country that has been run for 70 years by right-wing parties. This story goes back to the period 1951-1954, when the country was led by Jacobo Arbenz, a military man who promised to turn the country, a neocolonial state, into a modern economy. Arbenz was deposed in a coup organized by the United States with the support of the multinational United Fruits, the first company in the country.
Considered a progressive party and of the moderate left, the Movimiento Semilla group was born hand in hand with the anti-corruption demonstrations registered in 2015 and that led to the fall of the government of Otto Pérez Molina due to a scandalous and million-dollar case of bribery.
