Campaigning has begun in the leadup to Guatemala’s general elections scheduled for June 25. Since March 27, thirty political parties running twenty-two thousand candidates have sought to win the confidence of voters. Now, the national electoral body has made the alarming move to arbitrarily block progressive candidates from the presidential ticket to local level races.
Even before the anti-democratic move, these elections were being met with widespread voter apathy.
“In general, the population is quite disenchanted [with the electoral process],” Marielos Chang, an independent political analyst based in Guatemala City, tells The Progressive. “This is reflected when the pollsters ask about the intention to vote for the candidates and the majority do not know or do not answer.”
A CID-Gallup poll conducted between January and February 2023, showed 24 percent of participants were voting for a candidate not listed, were undecided, or intended not to vote. However, poll frontrunners include Zury Ríos, the daughter of former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt—who was convicted of genocide in 2013 before that conviction was annulled days later—and Sandra Torres, Guatemala’s former first lady, who has been accused of participating in massive acts of corruption.
Then in February, the Guatemalan Supreme Electoral Council rejected the inscription of leftwing candidate Thelma Cabrera and her vice presidential candidate, former Human Rights Ombudsman, Jordan Rodas. Supporters of Cabrera’s party, the Movimiento de Liberación del Pueblo, or MLP, have protested the exclusion of their candidates, with little response from the electoral body and courts.
Rightwing presidential candidate Roberto Arzú, who along with his running mate David Pineda was trying to run on a populist mandate, was also blocked from participating—likely because Arzú has grown increasingly critical of systemic issues in the country. Arzú challenged his exclusion, but will be left off the ballot.
Arzú and Cabrera supporters argue that their exclusion from the race is meant to clear the way for a candidate who is more in line with the political status quo. They may not be far off. According to the CID-Gallup poll, Arzú and Cabrera ranked among the top five candidates. The Public Prosecutor’s office has also petitioned the TSE to revoke the participation of Edmond Mulet, a right-wing candidate who is polling in third place, after he criticized the criminal investigation of journalists.
“There are a lot of [still active] candidates linked to drug trafficking, linked to corruption cases, and recycled politicians are generating a lot of negative incentives for citizens.”
But the move to exclude mostly progressives has hit mayoral and congressional candidates especially hard.
Among them are Aldo Dávila, the first openly gay member of congress who was running with the opposition party VOS, and Guatemala City mayoral candidate Juan Francisco Solórzano Foppa, who was running with a coalition of leftist and progressive parties. Both had their candidacies revoked by the electoral council, which cited the open criminal investigations of Dávila and Foppa (these investigations were spurred by far-right allegations by members of the current ruling party.)
Meanwhile, rightwing candidates who have faced criminal investigations and corruption allegations have been permitted to participate in this year’s elections.
“These were political decisions,” Renzo Rosal, an independent Guatemalan political analyst based in Guatemala City, tells The Progressive. “The reality that some candidates [are permitted to participate while] others [are not], and there are a lot of [still active] candidates linked to drug trafficking, linked to corruption cases, and recycled politicians are generating a lot of negative incentives for citizens.”
Additionally, some candidates have also sought to run members of their own families for other offices. For instance, former president Jimmy Morales is running for congress alongside his son, José Manuel Morales, while his brother, Sammy Morales, is running for the presidency.
“We see many parties that are putting relatives [up to be candidates as] a clear means of impunity,” Chang says. “Making it clear that they are nepotistic parties.”
Other political parties are running entire families for political office in these elections, including congress, mayorships, and for the Central American Parliament.
Both Jimmy and Sammy Morales have been accused of acts of corruption. In April, Sammy was forced by election officials to change his sexist campaign slogan, “Two Women, one way”.
As the election lurches forward, the Supreme Electoral Council and courts have shown they have little interest in upholding the law. The courts have permitted the participation of Ríos and Torres’ running mate, Romeo Estuardo Guerra Lemus, an evangelical pastor, in spite of constitutional bans preventing both the family members of former rulers who obtained power in a coup d’état and active religious leaders from running for higher office.
The electoral council has also proven incapable of holding parties accountable for campaigning prior to the legally permitted period. The body issued fines to political parties such as Unión Republicano, Visón con Valores (VIVA), and Partido Humanista for posting campaign material ahead of time, before revoking the fines soon after.
Many of these concerns stem from the fact that these elections are the first to be held following the closure of the United Nations-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, commonly known as CICIG. The body officially closed in September 2019, just weeks after the second round of voting in that year’s elections.
The closure of CICIG set in motion a climate of freedom for political actors seeking to maintain a system of corruption and impunity. CICIG had impeded these efforts, but today these figures are once again free to consolidate their power and carry out a revenge campaign against those who sought to restore democratic norms.
“It is as if they are saying ‘We had this stone in our shoe, we got rid of that stone, and now we are going [forward] with everything,’” Rosal says. “The regime is recovering.”