The return of Guatemala's pact of the corrupt

Eight years ago, there was talk of a 'Central American spring' in Guatemala. But the parallel structures that have once pained the country are back

José Rubén Zamora is under no illusions. 'I am a political prisoner,' the thoroughbred journalist and founder of elPeriódico asserts with certainty. After 27 years, the critical daily newspaper published its last issue on 15 May and is now history. In mid-June, the editor-in-chief was sentenced to six years in prison for money laundering, corruption and extortion. The 66-year-old wants to appeal. He calls the accusations against him fictitious and criticises the fact that exculpatory witnesses were not admitted and his defence lawyers were criminalised. This assessment is shared by the Inter-American Press Association, which wrote several times to the authorities in Guatemala. The media organisation expressed the suspicion that the judiciary in Guatemala was not independent and had become an instrument of dubious forces.

There are many indications of this in Guatemala. It is not only the numerous cases against troublesome journalists like Zamora, Carlos Choc, Sunny Figueroa or Marvin Del Cid that show that the judiciary has lost its independence, but also the cases against 'inconvenient' judges and prosecutors. Virginia Laparra is one of them. The head of the Special Prosecutor's Office against Corruption in Quetzaltenango has been in pre-trial detention since February 2022 for abuse of office.

The emergence of the pact of the corrupt

Criminalisation also threatened one of Guatemala's most respected judges: Miguel Ángel Gálvez. The 64-year-old reacted and used a trip to Germany in November 2022 to go into exile – similar to more than three dozen Guatemalan judicial employees and lawyers who no longer felt safe in the country in recent years and fled to a neighbouring country or to the United States. The case of Thelma Aldana, who was Attorney General until 2018 and is internationally known, also caused a stir. In 2018, she received the Alternative Nobel Prize for her work in fighting corruption in the region, together with Iván Velásquez, director of the UN Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). But one year later, Aldana had to leave her country because the resolute lawyer ran for president. As a result, corruption proceedings were initiated against Aldana and her candidacy was cancelled by the Supreme Electoral Court – although she was leading the polls. Shortly afterwards, the first threats were made against the lawyer and she left the country not long after.

This was anything but a coincidence, because by 2017, at the latest, the tide had turned in Guatemala. It was from then on, that the CICIG was not welcome anymore — even though the UN Commission against Impunity had been brought into the country in 2006 at the request of the Guatemalan government. Yet, it had become too close to those who hold power. In addition to building new structures in the judiciary, the CICIG created a new self-image. Corrupt judges – the rule rather than the exception in Guatemala – had to go, which also ensured a new self-image in the Central American country's judicial system. The best example of this was the involuntary resignation of President Otto Pérez Molina on 2 September 2015. The Guatemalan public prosecutor's office, supported by the CICIG, had presented several cardboard boxes of evidence of self-enrichment against the ex-general of the military intelligence service. As a result, parliament stripped him of his immunity. A short time later, Pérez Molina announced his resignation as president amid cheers from 150,000 Guatemalans who demonstrated against corruption and for democracy in front of the parliament and the National Palace.

All institutions are controlled by the pact of the corrupt, above all the Attorney General's Office under the corrupt María Consuelo Porras, who has been banned from entering the US.

At that time, the pendulum could well have swung in the direction of democracy. There was talk of a 'Central American spring' and the spirit of optimism in a society scarred by civil war (1960-1996) was almost within reach. But the old parallel structures, the alliances between the military and business families from the civil war, reawakened and began to reorganise themselves peu à peu: 'they have mutated into the "pact of the corrupt", which today once again controls power in Guatemala', says Miguel Ángel Gálvez, the judge who now lives in exile. The network of military leaders and the most important business families, supplemented by corrupt politicians and organised drug crime, has de facto put the country in chains. All institutions are controlled by the pact of the corrupt, above all the Attorney General's Office under the corrupt María Consuelo Porras, who has been banned from entering the US.

This also applies to the Supreme Electoral Court and the Constitutional Court, which are currently playing ball with each other. They have already barred three candidates from the presidential elections on 25 June on flimsy grounds. Among those affected is probably the most promising leftist duo: indigenous presidential candidate Thelma Cabrera and her running mate Jordán Rodas, former ombudsman for human rights. They are joined by Roberto Arzú and Carlos Pineda, two promising conservative candidates. The same fate also threatens Edmond Mulet: the former UN diplomat is currently waiting for a final ruling by the Constitutional Court.

This could turn out negatively despite international protests from the US, the EU and the Organisation of American States. It is significant that the political establishment under the hyper-corrupt president Alejandro Giammattei has long since stopped reacting to criticism from abroad. This is a major reason why the excluded candidate for the vice-presidency, Jordán Rodas, does not expect much from the elections. Guatemala is facing a new authoritarian regime, says the lawyer living in exile in Bilbao, Spain.