Guatemala City, (EFE).- The elected president of Guatemala, Bernardo Arévalo de León, presented this Monday an appeal to the Supreme Court of Justice to request that the judicial actions of the Public Ministry (Prosecutor’s Office) against the electoral process be stopped and He thanked the thousands of citizens who accompanied him for joining in “defending democracy.”
“We have seen the need to raise protection against these officials who have betrayed the country and its people,” declared Arévalo de León surrounded by some 5,000 people, in front of the Supreme Court of Justice.
Arévalo de León, 64, filed an appeal before the Supreme Court to reverse the actions that the Prosecutor’s Office, led by Consuelo Porras and the leadership of this entity, have taken against the electoral process in the Central American country.
The president-elect, who won the presidential runoff on August 20, was accompanied by the legal team of his party, the Semilla Movement, as well as his running mate, Karin Herrera.
In the appeal filed by Arévalo de León, in addition to Porras, prosecutors Rafael Curruchiche, Cinthia Monterroso, Leonor Morales and criminal judge Fredy Orellana are denounced, accusing them of “undue and arbitrary interference with the electoral process.”
With this action, Arévalo de León intends for the magistrates to reverse the judicial actions of the Prosecutor’s Office, including the raid against a headquarters of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal last week and the dismissal of Porras and the other officials involved, in what he has described as “an attempted coup d’état”, to prevent him from taking power on January 14.
“In a democratic State, when citizens speak at the polls and give a strong message, the institutions have to abide by this mandate, the only sovereign is the people,” stated Arévalo de León.
Supported by indigenous peoples
While Arévalo de León delivered the protection in the Supreme Court, a group of indigenous authorities from all the regions and Mayan towns of the country held an ancestral ceremony in the Human Rights Plaza, as a sign of support for the elected authorities.
The indigenous authorities, together with Cardinal Álvaro Ramazzini, recognized the elected duo and reminded them that they will have their support during “the months of struggle for democracy.”
In the morning, the secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, demanded, from Washington, that prosecutor Porras stop persecuting Arévalo de León.
“The complaints expressed by the Public Ministry are without clarity and without legal classification, they are clearly persecutory of a political party. The persecution against the Semilla party must stop,” he stated in front of the organization’s Permanent Council.
Arévalo de León, whose main promise is to eradicate corruption from the State, won the Presidency for the period 2024-2028 in the second electoral round on August 20 with 2.5 million votes in his favor and surpassing by 21 percentage points his rival, former first lady Sandra Torres Casanova, of the National Unity of Hope (UNE).
In the midst of the controversial criminal prosecution, Arévalo de León and his team are carrying out the command transition protocol with the current president, Alejandro Giammattei, who must hand over power on January 14.
The entry Arévalo de León: “We are united in defense of democracy” in Guatemala was first published in EFE Noticias.
