Arévalo is the new president of Guatemala after months of pressure

Bernardo Arevalo swore in the first minutes of Monday as president of Guatemalaon a day marked by citizen protests against the delay in the change of command and which puts an end to several months of tensions and actions by the Prosecutor’s Office to withdraw his immunity in what many saw as an attempt to prevent him from assuming power.

“On this momentous day, we advance along the path that many of us have carved with effort,” He started his first speech as president. The change of command, Arévalo defended, shows that Guatemala’s democracy “is strong enough to resist” and what can be “transform the political landscape” from the country.

The new president thanked the “sister nations” and organizations that accompanied him in the process. “Your support has been fundamental”he stressed, for the defense of Guatemalan democratic institutions.

Arévalo, 65 years old, doctor in Sociology and with a diplomatic career, is the son of former president Juan José Arévalo. He mentioned in his first words after the inauguration that “This honor is the fruit of the hopeful trust that Guatemalans have placed in our project” and “a commitment that we assume with humility and determination, aware of the responsibility.”

to the cry of “yes it was possible” of the public, Arévalo—who won the elections last August with popular support of more than 60%—took office after a significant delay due to the delay of the outgoing Congress with the new authorities, as had never happened until now in the country. .

He said it’s thank you “to the young people of Guatemala who have not lost hope that today I can speak to you from this podium” and graces “to the families who trusted” and “to ancestral leadership”, emphasizing that it is “aware of the historical debts that we must resolve” before indigenous peoples.

In his first action, President Arévalo visited the protest sit-in that authorities and indigenous peoples held in front of the prosecutor’s office for more than three months asking for the resignation of the attorney general.

One by one, the activist leaders explained the conditions of poverty and exclusion in which they live and demanded improvements in their communities.

Arévalo has said that asking for the resignation of Consuelo Porras, the attorney general, will be one of his priorities. Porras, sanctioned by the United States for undermining democracy in the Central American country, was leading an attack on Arévalo’s election.

The solemn session, in which Vice President Karin Herrera also took office, was to be held “no later than 4:00 p.m.” on January 14, according to the Guatemalan Constitution, but four hours later the new deputies were barely sworn in.

Arévalo finally arrived at the theater where the investiture took place at 8:00 p.m. and assumed the position of president after midnight, already being January 15, accompanied by several heads of state and government such as Gustavo Petro from Colombia, Xiomara Castro from Honduras or Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs.

More than 60 international delegations came to Guatemala for the investiture.

The outgoing president, Alejandro Giammattei, was absent from the ceremony and announced shortly before that he was handing over the “insignia of the presidential command” —band, button and collar— to Congress due to the risk that it would be too late and to record that he was “separated from the position of president” before January 15.

In a message on X, formerly Twitter, he attached the document with his signature and addressed to the deputies of Congress.

Given the delay of the outgoing Congress and the suspension of its session, the secretary general of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagroread in mid-afternoon before the press a joint statement by heads of state, chancellors and senior officials from other governments who attended the investiture in which he called on the Legislature “to fulfill his constitutional mandate to hand over power” to Arevalo.

In “name of all delegations invited and represented”, the secretary of the OAS He asked that the popular will of the Guatemalan people expressed in “fair, free and transparent elections” which were endorsed by international observers.

Almagro was also present at the swearing-in ceremony.

Congress extended the process for hours, given the confrontation between the outgoing Chamber and the new deputies over the appointment of a majority of ruling parties and allies to form the commission that was to review the credentials of the new ones.

Román Castellanos, re-elected deputy of the Semilla Movement, said that “The commission has taken too long to qualify the credentials, and they are also asking for requirements not established in the law to take possession.” The session was suspended for hours.

“What is perceived is that they want to delay or try not to give office to the new president,” Castellanos reproached during the day.

All this delay inflamed the protests outside Congress, where groups of farmers who went to the capital had moved to accompany Arévalo’s inauguration and defend democracy, they said.

“If they (Congress) do not swear it in, we as a people will swear it in,” warned Dina Juc, mayor of the indigenous mayor’s office of Utatlán Sololá who attended the mobilization.

José Galeano, who came from a village in the south of the country, claimed in the midst of the hustle and bustle behind him that he had gone to the capital and was mobilizing for “the rights of Guatemala, because there is a lot of corruption”. And he reported that ““The town is looted and Guatemala is in extreme poverty.”

“We need democracy,” the man defended, moments after some shoving clashes between protesters and the police.

The tension remained even in the moments prior to Arévalo’s swearing-in when some outgoing deputies left Congress and were greeted by citizens throwing objects at them.

A day before the inauguration, Arévalo said he felt “excited because we are reaching the end of this long and tortuous processor” and that “Guatemalan society has developed that determination to say ‘no’ to these political-criminal elites.”

His path, from when he was a candidate who had little chance in the polls to taking power, has been marked by a rapid advance in the midst of judicial investigations, arrest warrants, requests for him to lose his immunity and even the manifest intention of the prosecutor’s office to annul the elections.

The indigenous population has been key for Arévalo to reach the investiture. They were the ones who organized, demonstrated and blocked roads demanding that the prosecutor’s office stop its attack and respect the vote given to it by the presidency. But they have also criticized that the new president has not included more indigenous people, who represent the majority of the country’s population, in his cabinet.

Coming to power was not easy for him, nor will it be easy to form a government.

The plenary session of the outgoing Congress, made up mostly of ruling parties and allies, approved months ago a budget that not only subtracted allocations from portfolios such as Health and Education, but also increased resources for the prosecutor’s office and the judicial body in order to strengthen them. the two entities that lead the attack against the arrival of Arévalo.

One of the first tasks that Arévalo says he will do upon being inaugurated is to ask for the resignation of the attorney general, Consuelo Porras, who has led the judicial attack against him and has a four-year term that runs until 2026. The head of The prosecution requested three times that the new president’s immunity be lifted.

In his favor, the next president has a population tired of the corruptionto indigenous communities that advocate for an inclusive country and defend democracy and to the international community that has offered support to the new government and sanctions to those who try to stop the transfer of power.