This story was updated at 9:30 pm, Monday, August 28.
Even though an anti-corruption candidate won Guatemala’s presidential election last week in a landslide — and the country's electoral tribunal certified his victory Monday night — his establishment opponents started moving earlier in the day to challenge the results, and his party was suspended.
Still, many Guatemala experts say those efforts likely won't be enough to derail the January inauguration of Bernardo Arévalo — who trounced first-round winner Sandra Torres in the Aug. 20 runoff election with 58% of the vote to her 37%.
Torres and much of the conservative ruling establishment that backed her are charging vote fraud. But "I think it's too soon to say that [Arévalo’s victory] is doomed," said Will Freeman, Latin American studies fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
The country’s corrupt political establishment — known as El Pacto de Corruptos, or 'The Pact of the Corrupt' — failed to keep Arévalo out of the runoff in the first place, though it certainly tried to disqualify him and his left-center party after he took second place in the first round in June. That indicates the elite’s anti-democratic grip on Guatemala may be slipping, says Freeman.
“When everyone assumed this would be an unfree and unfair election, we saw enough of the establishment fragment to prevent that from happening,” he said.
“The business community in particular did not want to see it happen. Unless the establishment was all acting together, it was very hard to block the electoral process.”
Soon after Torres issued (with no evidence) her vote fraud allegation on Monday, though, the establishment did send another chill through Guatemala.
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Attorney General Consuelo Porras — whom the U.S. has sanctioned for corruption — had police arrest an attorney involved in anti-corruption efforts, Claudia Gonzalez, and search the home of the parents of another, Juan Francisco Sandoval, who is currently in exile.
Because Porras is in office until 2026, Freeman says she is most likely sending Arévalo a warning.
“This to me looks like Consuelo Porras trying to send a message to Arévalo that you have to negotiate with me,” Freeman said, “and that I’ll act in ways that are dubiously legal...to defend myself and my interests.”
It's unclear if the electoral registry's decision to suspend Arévalo's Semilla, or Seed party — an action Porras' office had also sought — will affect his ability to claim the presidency.
But many Guatemala democracy watchdogs are nervous about the establishment’s chances of thwarting an Arévalo presidency simply because they have time: Arévalo isn’t scheduled to be inaugurated until January 14.
And even if he does get sworn in, Freeman points out, the establishment-controlled Congress and judiciary are poised to put up myriad bureaucratic and financial roadblocks for his administration.
