© Reuters. SUBMIT IMAGE: Guatemalan President-elect Bernardo Arevalo resolves the media after consulting with Honduras President Xiomara Castro, at the Presidential Home, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, January 4, 2024. REUTERS/Fredy Rodriguez
By Sofia Menchu
GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) -Guatemala’s President-elect Bernardo Arevalo came to the website of his organized inauguration on Sunday after the event was postponed for hours by hostile legislators, triggering global require the election result to be honored.
Arevalo shared a video of his arrival to the nationwide theater on social networks platform X, stating it was time to “commemorate the brand-new spring in Guatemala.”
” See you in the plaza,” he included, describing Guatemala City’s public square where individuals normally collect to commemorate.
It was unclear, nevertheless, whether the occasion would continue as set up, as Congress was still swearing-in legislators, a treatment that should be finished before Arevalo is formally stated president and Karin Herrera sworn in as vice president.
The hold-up to the inauguration is the most recent legal problem Arevalo has actually dealt with considering that he swept to triumph in an August election, promising to mark out corruption and bring back democracy to Central America’s most populated nation.
These obstacles, which the president-elect has actually blamed on the attorney-general associated with the outbound president, highlight Guatemala’s vulnerable guideline of law and highlight the difficulties Arevalo deals with in attempting to keep his project promises to bring back political stability and root out arranged criminal activity.
The swearing-in at Congress was postponed after Guatemala’s leading court chose previously on Sunday that legislators from Arevalo’s own Semilla celebration might take their seats as independents, a relocation that waters down the celebration’s existence and damages the president-elect’s power. The court stated it would assemble on Monday to even more talk about the matter.
Fans of Arevalo threatened to storm Congress throughout the hold-up, as cops in riot equipment generated in the streets, as the United States and numerous Latin American nations required Arevalo’s election win to be appreciated.
Samantha Power, chief of the U.S. Firm for International Advancement, stated there was “no concern” that Arevalo was president and required calm.
Taiwan, which preserves diplomatic ties with Guatemala, likewise stated in a declaration that it “plainly” acknowledges Arevalo and Herrera as the president and vice president of the nation.
Honduran Foreign Minister Enrique Reina required Arevalo’s inauguration to be appreciated on a message shared on X, stating he was speaking on behalf of the delegations present in Guatemala, consisting of from the Company of American States (OAS) and the European Union.
” The Guatemalan individuals revealed their democratic will in reasonable, totally free and transparent elections, backed by the global neighborhood through its electoral observation objectives. That will should be appreciated,” Reina stated.
CONTINUED ATTACKS
Because Arevalo won the presidential-run off, the chief law officer, viewed as an ally of outbound President Alejandro Giammattei, has actually stepped up efforts to challenge his triumph and impede his shift.
The chief law officer has actually attempted to strip Arevalo and Herrera of legal resistance, tried to suspend his Semilla celebration and annul the election. The “coup” effort, as Arevalo terms it, has actually drawn 10s of countless Guatemalans to the streets.
The chief law officer’s workplace has actually rejected that it is trying a coup and protected its actions as within the structure of Guatemala’s laws.
The global neighborhood, consisting of the United States, has actually stacked large pressure on Giammattei’s administration to continue with the shift of power.
Last month, the U.S. federal government enforced extra visa constraints on almost 300 Guatemalan nationals consisting of 100 legislators out of the 160-member unicameral Congress, implicated of weakening democracy in the Central American country.
Regardless of its frustrating triumph in the governmental elections, Semilla – a social democratic, ecologist and progressive celebration – hardly won 23 of the 160 seats in the legislature.