Understanding the electoral elections in Guatemala: Analysis of the campaign phase and the first electoral round
The term “ political witch hunt” is an unusually accurate description of the elections in Guatemala this year. From the start, there was a systematic exclusion of parties that harbored anti-establishment figures or actors outside the political elite. Some parties failed to register at all or saw their participation cancelled during the campaign period, while others were allowed to compete, on condition that they excluded such anti-establishment figures from their ranks.
An emblematic example occurred before the political campaign began, when the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) refused to register candidates from an opposition party for the presidential election. This measure notably affected prominent figures such as Jordan Rodas, former Human Rights Ombudsman in Guatemala, known for his vigorous fight against corruption, and Thelma Cabrera, an indigenous human rights defender, who is singled out by some for her thoughts considered radical and anti-system. Both had the intention of forming a presidential ticket, but were excluded from the elections due to an alleged “administrative problem.”
During the campaign period, political elites continued to eliminate other candidates and parties before the elections. However, the measure that caused the greatest public discontent was when the Constitutional Court of Guatemala, an institution controlled by political elites, excluded candidate Carlos Pineda from the presidential elections. This candidate led the electorate’s preferences with more than 28% of voting intention, an exceptional figure in the country, where the presidential candidate with the most votes in the first round of 2023 obtained only 15.8% of the total votes.
With all the political maneuvering to exclude popular, non-establishment candidates and the financial resources used by establishment political parties, the political elites were certain that two of their three figures (Zury Ríos, Sandra Torres, and Edmond Mulet) would advance to the presidential runoff. However, an unexpected twist occurred on election day, when Bernardo Arévalo secured a spot in the presidential runoff as the second most voted candidate, with 11.7% of the total votes, just 4.1% behind Sandra Torres. This development surprised the nation, as no poll conducted before the election had predicted this. What made it even more unexpected was that Arévalo was a candidate from a center-left political party called “Movimiento Semilla,” characterized as an opposition party to the Guatemalan establishment elites.
The fact that this political party secured a place in the second round was perceived as a ray of hope for a part of the population for multiple reasons. The first reason relates to the powerful symbolism associated with his family history. Arévalo is the son of Guatemala’s first democratically elected president, Juan José Arévalo, who governed from 1945 to 1951. The second reason lies in the perception of Arévalo as an anti-establishment and anti-corruption candidate by a segment of the population, whose victory was perceived as a sign that Guatemalan politics could be different. Arévalo had managed to advance to the second round without relying on patronage networks, without a multimillion-dollar political campaign, and without the support of the country’s media and elites – factors that were previously considered essential to securing a place in the presidential second round.
The country’s turbulent path towards elections did not stop there. A week after the first elections took place, Guatemala’s Constitutional Court suspended the officialisation of the election results, alleging irregularities in the vote count and ordering a recount of the votes. This occurred after numerous national and international electoral observation missions, together with political party prosecutors, confirmed that election day took place in full compliance with the law, with no irregularities or suspicions of fraud.
In addition to concerns about electoral fraud in the presidential election in the counting of votes, there was also widespread fear among the population regarding the potential impact of such fraud on congressional seats and municipal positions. Despite the court ruling, which stated that a final decision had to be made before the second round of the presidential election, there were concerns among activists that this might not be the case, which could result in a postponement of the election. This latter fear was also exacerbated by the lack of legal precedents in Guatemala’s democratic history and the existence of a “legal vacuum” that places no specific time limit on such circumstances. The worrying events in the campaign phase and the first round are only the prelude to a turbulent sequel of events in the second round and its aftermath, marked by assassination attempts, breaches of voting custody, and international pressure.