Guatemala elects progressive Arévalo as president but there are legal moves to block him from office

GUATEMALA CITY — Bernardo Arévalo, a progressive from outside Guatemala’s power structure, was resoundingly elected the country’s next president Sunday in a reprimand to the governing elite over widespread allegations of corruption.

Despite preliminary results showing a potential landslide for anti-corruption crusader Arévalo, the attention immediately turned to whether he would be allowed to assume power as the Attorney General’s Office attempts to suspend his party’s legal status.

With 100% of votes counted, preliminary results gave Arévalo 58% of the vote to 37% for former first lady Sandra Torres in her third bid for the presidency. The official results will still have to be certified.

“We know that there is a political persecution underway that is being carried out through the institutions and prosecutor’s offices and judges that have been corruptly co-opted,” Arévalo said Sunday night. “We want to think that the force of this victory is going to make it clear that there is no place for the attempts to derail the electoral process. The Guatemalan people have spoken forcefully.”

Arévalo said outgoing President Alejandro Giammattei congratulated him and told him that they would begin planning the transition the day after the results were certified.

But Guatemalans still remember that an hour before the results from the first round of voting were certified last month, the Attorney General’s Office announced it was investigating the signatures gathered by Arévalo’s Seed Movement party to register years earlier. A judge briefly suspended the party’s legal status before a higher court intervened.

Eduardo Núñez, the Guatemala resident senior director for the National Democratic Institute, expected two trends to continue and intensify in the coming days: the country’s polarization and the judicialization of the electoral process.

Núñez said there will be three key moments: the immediate positions staked out by Arévalo’s Seed Movement and Torres’ National Unity of Hope party about the results; then on Oct. 31, when Guatemala’s electoral process officially ends and the Seed Movement will no longer enjoy the legal protection that would keep it from being cancelled, and finally on Jan. 14, when Giammattei is constitutionally mandated to leave office.

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