Guatemalan President-elect Bernardo Arévalo’s Seed Movement party gets its legal status back, at least temporarily.
of the Seed Movement last week to make its seven lawmakers, including Arévalo, independents, which bars them from leading legislative committees or holding other positions of leadership in Congress., shocked Guatemala by making it into an Aug. 20 presidential runoff in which he beat former first lady Sandra Torres by more than 20 percentage points.
Observers inside and outside Guatemala have warned in recent years that the country’s democracy is in decline.President Jimmy Morales, Giammattei’s predecessor, expelled the United Nations-backed anti-corruption mission that had made impressive strides in dismantling networks of corruption that divert public monies to their pockets and had allowed drug traffickers to take ever-growing control of the country.
Polls showed Arévalo’s party with under 3% support heading into the first round of voting. But his message of taking up once again the corruption fight resonated with a frustrated population facing an array of candidates mostly promising more of the same.