Guatemala’s embattled attorney general, Consuelo Porras, asked the highest court on Wednesday to criminally prosecute President Bernardo Arévalo, arguing that he has not complied with an order to avoid actions to remove her from office.
Porras said that she submitted to the Constitutional Court a request for “due execution” of an injunction granted in May in which Arévalo and other officials are required to “refrain” from “any act that, outside the constitutional and legal framework, threatens the mandate for which the prosecutor was elected” until 2026.
“The president has repeatedly stated that he wants to take control of the Public Prosecutor’s Office,” Porras said forcefully in a video posted on the X network.
The official added that despite the Court’s warnings, “they continue to act against the independence and autonomy” of the prosecution.
For this reason, the prosecutor requested “immediate prosecution [de Arévalo]issuing for this purpose the certification of what is relevant for the initiation of the corresponding criminal process.”
The questioned prosecutor pointed out that “by not complying” with the order, “the Secretary General of the Presidency, Juan Guerrero, the Attorney General of the Nation, Julio Saavedra, the Minister of Finance, Jonathan Menkos, and the Secretary of Communication, Santiago Palomo, “must also be immediately separated.”
Arévalo, in power since January, has publicly called for Porras’ resignation, considering that his actions violate democracy in the country. He also presented in May, days before the injunction, a bill to obtain the power to remove the prosecutor, but the project has not advanced in Congress.
Guatemalan government: she is “a weak and desperate prosecutor”
Since 2022, the prosecution has been pursuing a criminal case against dozens of former justice officials who investigated corruption cases, journalists, activists and critics of the previous government of right-wing Alejandro Giammattei (2020-2024).
Porras is also accused of trying to prevent Arévalo’s presidential inauguration with controversial investigations against his Semilla party and the 2023 elections in which the social democrat politician triumphed.
The United States and the European Union consider the prosecutor to be “corrupt” and “undemocratic.”
The Guatemalan government, in a message sent to the press after the Porras video, called her “a weak and desperate prosecutor” who “refuses to be accountable to the authorities, the media, public opinion” and the citizens.
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