Ollantay Itzamna
Those of us who look towards the 2023 electoral Guatemala, see with regret the fleeting nature with which the youthful hope that spontaneously gathered and gathers around the political organization Semilla, winner of the recent presidential elections, is blurring.
The sequence of political-electoral theatrical scenarios that the owners of the play place before us has the objective of keeping us like seals applauding the false messiahs sent by the anti-Guatemala Empire. To do this, the corrupt and corrupting hegemonic powers “make their corrupt people fight with those who are not necessarily their corrupt ones.”
They even construct “devils and devils” in the media so that the Chapina anger breaks out against those “enemies of Guatemala.” But, in the social protests “for democracy” the owners of the circus are not even mentioned. On the contrary, they receive Luis Almagro of the OAS, or the head of USAID in Guatemala as Christ himself or the Virgin Mary herself.
How do we enter this political theater?
The aforementioned theater was always present for more than two centuries of the Republic, perhaps with different owners.
The current electoral political chapter of this theater was born in the scenario of “the anti-corruption war” made in the USA socially installed in 2015. In this context they decided to create the political actor Semilla, later constituted as a political party illegally according to the questioned Public Ministry ( MP).
The founders of Semilla, perhaps with excessive confidence in North American support, via the Embassy and the USAID, forged 5 thousand signatures of adherents, of the 23 thousand or more that the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) required, to register the party. They now admit this illegal action, and they seek to redeem it by “blaming the young people who sought followers.” Be careful, Semilla brings together the sumum of the intellectuality of the “progressive” middle class of Guatemala. How did they allow this? Did they not know that the Law and the players would be relentless?
This illegality is the legal basis that the MP “craftily” uses to support the annulment of Semilla’s legal status. But it is also the reason for the beginning of the loss of confidence of the electorate towards this political party that promised to be “clean wheat” in the midst of so much weeds of corruption.
Are we stuck and condemned to political apathy?
The 2023 electoral process, like the previous ones, was undemocratic towards indigenous peoples and popular sectors. He systematically excluded them, and when they tried to participate in the polls, they were legally annihilated.
The 2023 electoral process was organized and carried out with vices of illegalities promoted and allowed by the TSE itself. The electorate went to the polls. They elected their new president. Now, judicial institutions selectively persecute the actors… If they punish representatives of the Semilla party, they must also punish those of other parties. What’s more, even to the TSE magistrates.
The truth is that, in this scene of the democratic theater of Guatemala, not only is the apparent state institutionality annulled, but a high dose of annoyance and frustration is injected into the feelings of the electorate, especially young people, towards the supposed democratic praxis. Consequently, not only is political apathy sown, but it is even stimulated in the population by the “thermal sensation” of: a “strong hand” returning to bring order. This scene is a condition of possibility for the return of tyranny.
Fortunately, in this country of “eternal tyranny,” rural and urban centers have been organizing, for some years now, and promoting the proposal of a Popular and Plurinational Constituent Assembly process to create a new legal system, new institutions, new horizons of life. .
