Guatemala lives a political roller coaster. The same day that the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) confirmed the victory of Bernardo Arévalo de León In the elections of August 20, the director of the Registry of Citizens of this Court resolved provisionally suspend the legal personality of the Seed Movement. This decision was made after the Seventh Court judge, Fredy Orellana, ordered it on July 12, after requesting it by the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity based on an investigation that accuses Semilla of having been established in 2018 falsifying at the company of more than 300 affiliates and incorporating the rubric of 18 people already deceased.
On that occasion, coinciding with the officialization of the results of the first roundthe director of the Registry of Citizens, Ramiro Muñoz, refused to comply with the judge’s order, alleging that he was going to against article 92 of the Electoral and Political Parties Law, of constitutional rank, which establishes that “a party may not be suspended after an election has been called and until it has been held.” Likewise, the Constitutional Court granted the following day a provisional protection to Semilla that stopped the judge’s order, which allowed Bernardo Arévalo to run for the second round, which he won after obtaining 2.4 million votes, against 1, 5 million from his rival, Sandra Torres. The Supreme Court of Justice also granted definitive amparo on August 18 and ordered the TSE to take the necessary actions to “guarantee the purity of the electoral process.”
A few minutes after the TSE made the results of the August 20 elections official on Monday, the director of the Citizens’ Registry resolved the suspension of Semilla’s legal personality, leaving this party in a limbo a few months after Bernardo Arévalo takes office as president on January 14, 2024. He justified his decision to attend to the judicial order because “the second round has already been held and the corresponding scrutinies have been established.”
The Social Democrat appeared urgently to announce that this Tuesday he will present a appeal for nullity before the TSE against Muñoz, considering that his resolution is “null and void” and, therefore, predicts that “it will fall by itself”, taking into account that the electoral process officially concludes on October 31 and, until then, Semilla’s legal personality could not be suspended. Likewise, she advanced that she will also file an amparo before the Second Criminal Chamber against the “illegal” actions of Judge Orellana and the head of the FECI, Rafael Curruchicheboth included in the US Engel List of Corrupt and Undemocratic Actors. Specifically, he condemns the “political persecution” led by the judge and the prosecutor and recalls that the cancellation of a party can only be ordered for the reasons established in the Electoral Law and only the TSE has constitutional competence to do so.
In addition, he defended that the results confirm the “forceful and sovereign” decision of the people of Guatemala, so that, from this moment on, “nothing can illegally prevent us from taking office on January 14, as established in the Constitution. In this sense, he remarked that Semilla “will not give up on the demand for respect for the popular will freely expressed at the polls on June 25 and August 20 and respect for the rule of law and the democratic regime” which, according to censure, “They are being threatened by those who refuse to accept the change that Guatemala demands.”