By José Carlos Mobile |
Guatemala City (EFE).- Guatemala will hold elections this Sunday marked by mistrust in its electoral court after the arbitrary elimination, according to experts, of three of its candidates, including businessman Carlos Pineda, who led the polls a month ago .
These are the five keys to understanding the elections that will take place next Sunday in Guatemala, where authorities will be designated for the period 2024-2028.
1. Candidates arbitrarily removed.
According to analysts, the Guatemalan Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) and the Justice of the Central American country are under scrutiny and with serious doubts about their independence due to the removal of three candidates with the possibility of winning the elections.
First it was Thelma Cabrera, an indigenous leader who was not allowed to participate due to an alleged complaint about her vice-presidential candidate, Jordán Rodas. Cabrera was fourth in the 2019 elections and few doubted her strength four years later.
Later, it would be the turn of businessman Carlos Pineda, leader of the polls, and also the son of former president Álvaro Arzú, Roberto Arzú García-Granados, discarded for unclear reasons.
2. Without IT manager and with scandal included
Historically, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal had been one of the institutions most trusted by the Guatemalan population, mainly due to the independence shown after the implantation of democracy in 1986 and also in the elections since 1990.
However, the current electoral process has been characterized by several events with few precedents within the TSE: there is no IT manager and therefore there is a legal vacuum within the institution that generates suspicion; The court contradicted itself with the registration and subsequent removal of the candidacy for deputy of the politician Manuel Baldizón, convicted in the United States for corruption and some of his magistrates have past accusations against him for corruption.
The icing on the cake came on Thursday: the New York Times newspaper published a report detailing that allegedly the right hand of the president, Alejandro Giammattei, Miguel Martínez, delivered a bribe to TSE magistrate Blanca Alfaro, who allegedly reported it to the embassy from United States.
3. No possibility of re-election in Guatemala
The current president, Alejandro Giammattei, cannot be re-elected by provision of the Constitution of the Central American country, although his options to return to the magistracy would be low after a recent international survey that listed him as one of the three leaders with the lowest approval of Latinamerica.
The candidate of Giammattei’s party, Vamos, is the current deputy Manuel Conde, and likewise his chances of coming to power are low, according to polls, in addition to the fact that never in the history of the Central American country in its democracy has a party He has managed to return to the presidency. Typically, they disappear in one or two election periods.
4. Freedom at stake
For many candidates who are subjected to accusations of all kinds, both from within the country and abroad, this Sunday’s elections are crucial to guarantee immunity.
This is the case, for example, of legislators Felipe Alejos Lorenzana and Javier Hernández, or former president Jimmy Morales (2016-2020), who is currently a deputy of the Central American Parliament and is seeking a seat in Congress for the 2024-2028 legislature.
Between 2019 and 2023 alone, Guatemala has arrested more than 150 people at the request of the United States Justice, mostly on drug trafficking charges, including the current deputy, an ally of the ruling party, José Armando Ubico, who due to his immunity has achieved stop his transfer this year, although it is not ruled out that the local authorities will finally set a date for his extradition.
5. Apathy for the elections
The latest survey published this Thursday by the local newspaper Prensa Libre indicates that 13.5% of potential voters are thinking of nullifying it, due to the apathy that the population experiences with current politicians.
According to the same poll, that 13.5% is higher than the vote that each of the candidates would receive except for the leader in the polls, former first lady Sandra Torres Casanova, who has 21% of the intention to vote.
Torres Casanova, however, won the first round in 2019 and was second in 2015, but both lost in the second round to Jimmy Morales and Alejandro Giammattei.