The new president of Guatemala, Bernardo Arévalo, who was finally able to take office yesterday morning in a spectacular inauguration, has found in the United States his main support. In a series of chain statements, the White House, starting with President Joe Biden, rushed yesterday to side with the reformist social democratic leader after sending an unequivocal message to the traditional political class, ousted from power by Arévalo, after he tried to derail his investiture in what his supporters describe as a “coup” attempt.
“The ties between Guatemala and the United States are deep, and the inauguration is proof of our historic commitment to democracy,” Biden said in a statement in which he congratulated Arévalo and encouraged him to collaborate on issues of “human rights”, “security”, “migration” and also in the fight against “corruption”, the main battle horse of the new president and what has caused the de facto powers to resist his investiture tooth and nail.
At the same time, in another significant gesture, the American vice-president, Kamala Harris, invited this 65-year-old career diplomat and ex-MP to visit Washington “in the coming months”. For his part, in a third statement, the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, also congratulated the new president, and thanked the Guatemalan people “for promoting democracy in difficult circumstances” and the international community “what a safeguard is the electoral integrity”, highlighting “the key role” played by the OAS during the troubled takeover.
In fact, it was the Secretary General of the OAS, Luis Almagro, who read on Sunday – in the midst of a chaotic day in which deputies aligned with the conservative government leaving Alejandro tried to torpedo the presidential handover in Congress – the joint statement of support for Arévalo, signed by the Foreign Ministers who went to Guatemala City, as well as by the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell.
“We call on the Congress of the Republic to comply with its constitutional mandate to hand over power as required by the Constitution,” read Almagro, in an impromptu appearance flanked by Borrell and the chancellors present, including the Spanish José Manuel Albares. “The Guatemalan people expressed their democratic will in fair, free and transparent elections,” said the joint statement.
At that time of the Guatemalan evening, it was already clear that the deputies opposed to Arévalo were trying to prevent his assumption, obstructing the constitution of Congress, an essential preliminary step for the oath of office by the president. They managed to delay the swearing-in ceremony at the Miguel Ángel Asturias Cultural Center for more than ten hours, although it finally took place in the morning, with the announced absence of Giammattei, but also of some of the invited representatives who, for delay and uncertainty, they ended up leaving the country, like King Felipe VI or the president of Chile, Gabriel Boric.
Among the foreign representatives who stayed to make sure that Arévalo took over as president was Biden’s envoy, Samanta Power, director of USAID, the American agency for development, who previously also had demanded that Congress “respect the will of the people”.
The dispute in the Parliament ended with the election as president of the House of Samuel Pérez, deputy of Movimiento Semilla, the party founded by Arévalo to fight against corruption, despite the fact that the governing formation only has 23 of the 160 seats and the decision of the justice of outlawing it after the elections of last August, which the new president won against the odds with almost 61% of the votes.
“Never again authoritarianism”, said Arévalo in his first speech. “We will not tolerate our institutions bowing once again to corruption and impunity,” he added.
Before taking office, Arévalo had already announced that he would demand the resignation of the State Attorney General, Consuelo Porras, whom he accuses of leading the coup against him since his electoral victory.
