(Guatemala) Demonstrators blocked around thirty roads in Guatemala for the fourth consecutive day on Thursday, to demand an end to the electoral persecution aimed, according to them, at preventing President-designate Bernardo Arévalo from taking office next January.
These actions come after a new search on Friday and Saturday at the headquarters of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) during which the electoral registers for the presidential election of August 20 were seized. The operation was strongly criticized by the international community.
Protesters, most of whom are indigenous, are blocking stretches of strategic roads, such as those leading to the borders of Mexico, El Salvador and Honduras, using vehicles and tree branches. Their numbers reached more than a thousand in some places.
PHOTO ORLANDO ESTRADA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Guatemalan President-elect Bernardo Arévalo
Returning from Washington, where he denounced “a slow-motion coup,” Mr. Arévalo met activists from civil organizations on Thursday.
“This is an opportunity to highlight the call for national unity around peaceful protest to reject attempts to violate the electoral and constitutional process,” he said at a press conference.
Until now, the demonstrations took place mainly in the west of the country, but on Thursday, indigenous people from Quiché (north) and Escuintla (south) joined them. The number of blocked road sections increased from 20 to 33 on Thursday, according to the general directorate of road safety.
Waving national blue and white flags, demonstrators chanted slogans and held signs demanding the resignation of Attorney General Consuelo Porras, Prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche and Judge Fredy Orellana, all three at the origin of a crusade against the Semilla party of the winner of the presidential election.
The social democrat Bernardo Arévalo asked the courts in mid-September to lift the immunity of the attorney general and judge Orellana after the prosecutor’s office seized the ballot boxes a few days earlier.
Lifting their immunity would allow them to be investigated for six alleged crimes, including violation of the Constitution and abuse of power for electoral purposes.
The former deputy accuses the magistrates of wanting to foment “a coup d’état” in order to prevent him from gaining power. He emerged victorious in the second round of the presidential election, after a surprise victory in June during the first round.