Guatemala City (EFE).- The Guatemalan Public Ministry (MP, Prosecutor’s Office) is conducting a new raid this Thursday at the facilities of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, in another action for the case against the Movimiento Semilla political party.
The procedure is related to an alleged case of corruption with which the Prosecutor’s Office seeks to cancel the progressive Semilla party, whose presidential candidate, Bernardo Arévalo De León, advanced to the second round scheduled for August 20.
The raid took place in the human resources department of the electoral body, according to the court spokesman.
Until now, a strong police contingent remains guarding the headquarters of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal where the proceeding is being carried out.
The first raid
On July 13, the Prosecutor’s Office carried out a first raid in the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to confiscate the Movimiento Semilla file for a case where the party is accused of allegedly incorporating false signatures in its creation process in 2018.
Prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche, sanctioned by the US State Department, is leading the investigation against the party and intends to suspend Semilla, who will compete in the runoff for the presidency on August 20.
However, the Constitutional Court, the country’s highest court, protected the Semilla party on July 13, and annulled the order of a criminal court of first instance seeking its cancellation.
So far, the Prosecutor’s Office has issued two arrest warrants against members of the party and he has denounced that he has been denied access to the case file against him.
Guatemala’s electoral crossroads
Arévalo de León managed to advance to the runoff after surprisingly obtaining second place in the elections on June 25, behind former first lady Sandra Torres, while polls placed him in seventh or eighth place.
The officialization of the results by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal was pending after the Constitutional Court, the highest court of the Central American country, ordered a new review of the electoral records on July 1, which took place from July 4 to 6.
The Guatemalan electoral process was widely marked prior to the elections by the suspension of three candidacies with the possibility of winning the presidential elections.
The Semilla group was born from the demonstrations against corruption registered in the Central American country during 2015 and which culminated in the fall of the Government of Otto Pérez Molina (2012-2015), currently in prison.