A summary by Martin Mowforth – see sources below.
On 14th January [2020] Alejandro Giammattei took over as President of Guatemala from Jimmy Morales.
Guatemalan civil society groups pressured authorities to arrest President Jimmy Morales for corruption during the few hours of the 14th January between the handover to the new President and the swearing in of Morales as a representative on the Central American Parliament (Parlacen). During those few hours his immunity from prosecution lapsed and only during that time could he be arrested.
Morales and more than a dozen outgoing congressional representatives face allegations of corruption and other crimes. Unlike most previous presidents, Morales was keen to join Parlacen in order to retain his immunity from prosecution. The timetable for the swearing in to Parlacen was suddenly advanced in order to limit the time available to bring about any such arrest or prosecution.
Most of the investigations into political corruption were initiated by the UN-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). CICIG was formed in 2007 and exposed networks of corruption that had been entrenched in state institutions. CICIG investigations led to the resignation and arrest in 2015 of then-President Otto Pérez Molina and many in his administration. With the campaign slogan ‘neither a thief nor corrupt’ Morales won the election just weeks later, but he turned against CICIG after he, his relatives and his party were named in connection with investigations in 2017. In 2018 he refused to renew CICIG’s mandate and later barred CICIG’s head commissioner Iván Velasquez from the country.
President Giammattei represents the extreme right wing of politics and was backed by a group of hard-line former military officers who opposed the peace process which brought an end to Guatemala’s 36 year war. Amongst other things, he has no intention of bringing CICIG back but has vowed to bring back the death penalty. His only other experience of public political service was as Director of the Penitentiary System during which time he was denounced by human rights organisations for the high number of extrajudicial executions of prisoners.
Giammattei has promised to promote the extractive industries which, as experience shows us, cause forced displacement of rural and indigenous populations. He is also linked to the Foundation Against Terrorism which uses malicious prosecution to prevent defenders of human rights, land rights and environmental rights from pursuing investigations into, denunciations of and prosecutions of those who abuse these rights.
Under the heading ‘President Alejandro Giammattei appears to be a new face backed by the same old criminal networks’, the Guatemala Human Rights Commission (GHRC) has produced an in-depth analysis of human rights concerns regarding Giammattei’s forthcoming presidency. A pdf of this analysis can be found here: [pdf version here].
Sources:
Rights Action, 14 January 2020, ‘Changing of military-backed regimes in Guatemala’. This includes an article by Sandra Cuffe, ‘Guatemalans demand arrest of outgoing president for corruption’. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/guatemalans-demand-arrest-outgoing-president-corruption-200114001457754.html
Telesur, 14 January 2020, ‘Guatemala: Giammattei takes office in a poor, insecure country’.
GHRC, 15 January 2020, ‘No relief in sight: President Alejandro Giammattei appears to be a new face backed by the same old criminal networks’. www.ghrc-usa.org