OAS Commission will visit Guatemala and attend Arévalo’s inauguration

A commission of the Organization of American States (OAS) made up of representatives from several countries will visit Guatemala and attend the inauguration of the elected president Bernardo Arévalo de Leónscheduled for January 14.

The outgoing president of Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei, agreed to allow an official visit of “good jobs” of the OAS, an organization that has denounced the attempts of the Guatemalan Prosecutor’s Office to reverse the victory at the Arévalo de León polls.

This was announced this Wednesday by the president of the Permanent Council of the OAS, the diplomat from Antigua and Barbuda Ronald Sanders, during a session called to report on the trip that the Secretary General of the OAS, Luis Almagro, made last week to the Central American country.

The commission, whose members are unknown at the moment, will be in Guatemala between January 12 and 14 for the inauguration of Arévalo de León.

Almagro stressed during the session that “So far” it has been possible to stop the “forces that wanted to prevent the transition process from prevailing.”

However, he warned that “those forces continue and will continue after January 14.”

On his last visit to the country, the Uruguayan politician met with magistrates of the Constitutional Court of Guatemala, as well as with the elected vice president Karine Herrera.

Last week, the Constitutional Court of Guatemala determined that the authorities elected in this year’s elections must take office in January, as established by law.

The Foreign Minister of Guatemala, Mario Búcaro, who also participated in the meeting of the Permanent Council in Washington, conveyed the will of the outgoing Government to ensure the transition of powers.

In addition to sending the commission of ambassadors, the OAS has also already begun the process to convene a meeting of foreign ministers from the American continent to address the crisis in Guatemala.

These actions announced by the OAS on Wednesday come after a resolution was approved on Tuesday of last week in which Article 18 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter was explicitly invoked.

This article details the steps to follow when an OAS member state “produce situations that could affect the development of the democratic institutional political process or the legitimate exercise of power.”

Since the progressive candidate Bernardo Arévalo de León, from the Semilla Movement, won the presidential election in August, the Public Ministry, led by Consuelo Porras, has launched investigations against the elected president, members of his party and electoral officials.