Image Credit: Shalom de León, by Unsplash

In the heart of Guatemala’s landscape, a tale of elections unfolds—a suspenseful ballad of democracy. On the fateful night of July 25, 2023, citizens went out to vote for their next president and elected Bernardo Arévalo.

There were two main parties in this presidential election. There was the more liberal party, Movimiento Semilla, with Bernardo Arévalo as the nominee. On the other side was the more conservative party, la Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE), with Sandra Torres as the nominee. The votes for the election were certified on August 25, 2023, and Arévalo is set to replace the conservative president of the Vamos party, Alejandro Giammatte. 

Movimiento Semilla was seen as the underdog in this election but came out on top with 53% of all the votes. This is a new political party in Guatemala that, as Guatemalan professor Samuel Perez de Leon explains, was “created by young intellectuals, social activists and progressive thinkers, and supported by the young urban middle class.” Their candidate, Bernardo Arévalo, is nicknamed “Tío Bernie, referencing both the outsider status and the shared name with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.”

La Unidad Nacional de las Esperanza is in certain respects the opposite of Movimiento Semilla. UNE is the more politically entrenched conservative counterpart and lost, only gaining 37% of all votes. The nominee for the party is former first lady Sandra Torres who ran “her 2023 campaign on an anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion platform.” Her husband was Álvaro Colom, the Guatemalan president from 2008 to 2012 as a part of UNE. However, this political party earned infamy for its corruption, as they were inclined to “trading votes in Congress for favors and jobs.” 

Despite Arévalo rightfully winning the presidential election, there have been attempts to prevent him from taking power. Arévalo’s ascent to power left a bad taste in the mouths of the Guatemalan elite, as he campaigned on the promise that he would “fight corruption and rescue a flawed democracy which has been captured by historic oligarchies, corrupt politicians, and criminal mafias.”

The Attorney General of Guatemala, María Consuelo Porras, has launched an investigation on la Movimiento Semilla, and her office even went so far as to raid the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, the electoral commission in Guatemala. American journalist Nick Schifrin has expressed that they seized the election materials to “try and destroy Arevalo’s party and prevent his presidency.” 

It is not only Porras who is attempting to disqualify the presidency of Arévalo, but also the head of the Public Ministry’s Office of the Special Prosecutor against Impunity, Rafael Curruchiche. Curruchiche has a history of being corrupt as he was “sanctioned by the United States Department of State on January 2023 for undermining democracy and engaging in corruption.” Porras tasked Curruchiche with raiding the headquarters of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal and raided it for the fourth time on September 29, 2023. 

Yet amidst this discord, Arévalo remained resolute. In an interview on October 4th, he said that he was strongly confident that he could be sworn in as president in January 2024. Arévalo called what the Guatemalan government is currently doing as a “coup d’etat.” He explained that “their hope is that, eventually, there will be some sort of reversal or alteration of the electoral result, so that those who have been elected to take office will not be able to do so. And that is a coup d’etat.” 

The people of Guatemala have shown their support for Arévalo by going out and protesting for Porras and Curruchiche to resign. A protester by the name of Kevin Mazariegos revealed, “The things that have happened have been illegal for the most part, and to me it seems very sad that a celebration like the elections we have to come and defend our vote.” Giving a second opinion, Cindi Blanco, a Vanderbilt junior majoring in public policy, has given some insight on this issue, elaborating that “Guatemalans have elected their president, and it would be a threat to free elections everywhere if Arevalo does not become president.” The people of Guatemala have made their decision on who they want to be the next president, and now that promise must be kept if democracy wants to prevail in the free world.