Guatemala’s top court on Thursday ordered the Guatemalan Congress to “guarantee” the swearing-in of Bernardo Arevalo as the nation’s president after accepting an appeal against efforts by the prosecutors’ office aimed at preventing him from assuming power on Jan. 14.
The Guatemalan Constitutional Court said in a statement that it had issued an order to “command Congress ... to guarantee the effective inauguration of all elected officials in the 2023 electoral process, in accordance with official rights and validation of results.”
The decision came after the court accepted an appeal presented in October by a group of lawyers and citizens to clear Arevalo to take office.
Photo: AFP
The court order appeared to hearten Arevalo, a political outsider who pledges to combat corruption once he is sworn in.
“We have won the elections and we will take office on January 14. Guatemala, the future is already ours,” Arevalo wrote on X.
The resolution also protects the inauguration of Guatemalan vice president-elect Karin Herrera and of the 160 deputies, 340 mayors and 20 representatives to the Central American parliament who were elected in this year’s vote.
The court, citing its duty “to safeguard the constitutional order and the constitutional rule of law in Guatemala, decided to grant definitive protection,” the statement said.
Arevalo has faced an onslaught of legal challenges since his surprise second-round election victory in August, including attempts to suspend his political party and stop him from taking office.
The 65-year-old’s triumph and his pledge to fight graft are widely seen in Guatemala as alarming to the establishment political elite.
On Friday last week, prosecutor Leonor Morales said that investigations had concluded that the election of Arevalo, his vice president and parliamentarians was “null and void” due to counting “anomalies” in the first round in June.
However, the Guatemalan Supreme Electoral Tribunal said that “the results are validated, formalized and unchangeable.”
In Washington, the Organization of American States secretariat said that it “condemns the attempted coup d’etat by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Guatemala.”
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