Por Giorgio Trucchi |
There are gigantic challenges ahead.
At the end of an exhausting day, during which the corrupt forces entrenched in the state apparatus spared no effort to reverse the popular will expressed at the polls, the elected president Bernardo Arévalo was sworn in and assumed the presidency of Guatemala.
The day of January 14 was characterized by the attempt by the outgoing deputies, most of them close to former President Giammattei and the Guatemalan de facto powers, to prevent the new legislature from being installed.
Furthermore, they pursued the objective of preventing the deputies of the ruling Semilla Movement from taking possession of their seats, and for said party and its allies to ensure control of the new board of directors.
The agreement reached between the Semilla Movement and six parliamentary groups, among others the leftist/indigenist Winaq-Urng, the progressive VOS and the right-wing and center-right CABAL, BIEN, VIVA and VICTORIA, managed to unblock the impasse in which the legislative power.
After the installation of the new legislature, the majority alliance elected the new board of directors, naming Samuel Pérez of the Semilla Movement as president.
It also reversed the decision of the outgoing deputies to consider as “independent” both the elected deputies of the Semilla Movement, since that party’s legal status was suspended, and dissident legislators from UNE.
According to the internal statutes of the Guatemalan Congress, independent deputies are not eligible for management positions.
Arévalo is sworn in
After midnight, the legislators headed to the “Miguel Ángel Asturias” Cultural Center, where President Bernardo Arévalo and his vice Karin Herrera were sworn in and took office.
Both his inauguration and the majority achieved in Congress represent, without a doubt, a first hard blow to what is known in Guatemala as the “corrupt pact.”
A result that would not have been possible to achieve without the struggle and incessant mobilization of the indigenous peoples, who for months took to the streets demanding respect for the popular will, facing repression ordered by the executive.
During his first speech as president of Guatemala, Arévalo assured that during his government he will not allow public institutions to “bend again to corruption and impunity.”
He also recalled that “there can be no democracy without social justice. And justice cannot prevail without democracy”, committing at the same time to show concrete results and not remain just promises.
His first measures, he explained, will aim to solve the serious situation of poverty and abandonment in which millions of Guatemalans live, investing in the generation of employment, access to health, education, energy and housing.
Arévalo also thanked the indigenous authorities and the four peoples that make up Guatemala, valuing their mobilization in defense of democracy.
The hardest thing comes now
A pulverized Congress and a very diverse parliamentary majority, public institutions infiltrated and controlled by the de facto powers and illicit networks, together with very high expectations of change on the part of the vast majority of the population, pose very great challenges to the new executive.
Furthermore, the popular support achieved in recent months, which certainly does not constitute a blank check for the government, but rather an attentive and severe supervisory subject on its future performance.
Already the formation of the new government, which brings together members of the business elite, technocrats, former officials and former advisors of the old governments, members of Semilla and unconditional supporters of the president, has aroused certain suspicions.
Furthermore, the Guatemalan oligarchy and the de facto power groups will not sit idly by.
Less than 78 hours after the presidential swearing-in, the Constitutional Court (CC) ruled in favor of some appeals presented by opposition deputies, ordering the repetition of the election of the parliamentary board of directors.
With this resolution, the magistrates annul the agreements with which the “independent” status of the Semilla Movement deputies and the UNE dissidents was reversed.
This leaves Samuel Pérez and the majority of members of the board elected last Sunday out of office, opening the way for a new vote and a readjustment of the balance of the majority alliance.
The CC also clarified that this resolution does not affect in any way what the board has done these days, leaving the assumption of President Arévalo’s position firm.
Faced with this extremely difficult and unstable scenario, the only way for the new government to move forward, countering the attacks of the most extremist sectors of the country, is not only to take care of the correlation of political and institutional forces, but at the same time to deepen the alliance with the people and the mobilized social and popular organizations.
Only in this way can we begin a path of real change in the country.
Fuente: Rel FORGET
