Arévalo, the president who promises to eliminate corruption in Guatemala

In 1954, a military coup overthrew the then president of Guatemala Jacobo Árbenz truncating the “democratic spring”, one of the most flourishing periods of the Central American country. The maneuver, supported by the CIA, forced his predecessor, Juan José Arévalo, to go into exile in Uruguay along with his family.

Even before he was born, that episode would mark the life of Bernardo Arévalo, who prevailed on Sunday in the second round of the presidential elections with the promise to banish entrenched corruption in Guatemala when he takes office in January 2024.

Arévalo was born in 1958 during his parents’ exile in Uruguay and spent his first months in that country, later settling in Venezuela, Mexico and Chile. At the age of 15 he moved, along with his family, to Guatemala and there he finished school. But he would soon go to Israel, where he graduated as a sociologist.

In the 1980s he entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a career diplomat. He held various positions such as consul at the Israeli embassy, ​​vice chancellor and ambassador to Spain.

Subsequently, he continued his higher education in the Netherlands, where he obtained a doctorate in philosophy and social anthropology from the University of Utrecht.

At the end of the last century he began working at the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Interpeace as an advisor for peacebuilding in conflicts in Asia, Africa and Latin America. He was also an advisor to various organizations such as the UN, the United States Institute of Peace, and the University of San Diego in California.

The penultimate of five siblings, Arévalo enjoys music and reading and shares training in philosophy and diplomacy with his father, who died in 1990.

“I am not my father but I walk the same path that he built”he said during his campaign closing in the middle of last week.

Former President Juan José Arévalo (1945-1951) is recognized for promoting numerous reforms to integrate the poorest classes of Guatemalan society, such as the creation of the Ministry of Labor and the Guatemalan Social Security Institute during a period known as “democratic spring”.

political seed

Before jumping into politics, influenced perhaps by his father’s legacy, Arévalo was known as an academic, dedicated to writing books and articles on civil-military relations and security.

“He always had an academic but jovial air and was willing to share experiences and ideas with young people”said Álvaro Montenegro, co-founder of several anti-corruption organizations and who met Arévalo in 2015.

That year, the anti-government demonstrations awakened the political seed in Arévalo.

Since April, tens of thousands of Guatemalans have taken to the streets of the country to demand the resignation of then-President Otto Pérez and his vice-president, after the Public Ministry and the now-defunct CICIG – a UN-backed commission against impunity – revealed a customs smuggling ring involving high-ranking officials.

The demonstrations forced Pérez to resign and convinced the population that the fight against corruption could have concrete results.

Arévalo participated in those protests. Shortly after, he together with a group of intellectuals created a think tank which they baptized as “Seed”.

In the following years, the fight against corruption lost strength and the democratic spaces were reduced in the country. For this reason, in mid-2017, Semilla registered as a political organization and, a year later, as a political party with a social democratic, environmental and progressive ideology.

They competed for the first time in the 2019 general elections, where Arévalo was elected deputy. Semilla nominated former attorney general Thelma Aldana – who led several high-level anti-corruption investigations – for her presidential bid.

However, before registering, the Public Ministry requested an arrest warrant against her, so the former prosecutor moved to the United States, where she was granted asylum.

In January 2023, Arévalo was proclaimed Semilla’s presidential candidate for this year’s elections accompanied by the biologist Karin Herrera as his vice-presidential candidate.

For the first round of June, the polls did not place him as one of the favorites, but he slipped into the ballot thanks to the population’s weariness with corruption and the exclusion of four candidates, including businessman Carlos Pineda, who led the preferences.

Now, Arévalo, married three times and father of six children, wants to spread the anti-corruption seed in the country, just as his father did when he implanted modern social democracy in Guatemala in the middle of the last century.

“The new spring is coming, that’s what it feels like, and all of you are the seeds of that new spring”Arevalo said during a campaign rally in August. “Without the fight against corruption we will not be able to rescue the institutions we need to generate development,” added.

Source: Reuters