The chaotic election season in Guatemala had another frenzied day Thursday when the Constitutional Court granted an appeal and lifted the suspension of the Movimiento Semilla party, whose left-leaning candidate, Bernardo Arévalo, was set to compete in the August 20 presidential runoff after a surprise second-place finish in round one.
The suspension was based on a series of forged signatures on the party’s registration reports filed more than a year ago, but Movimiento Semilla argued that it had already discovered and denounced these irregularities in the past.
Beyond the technicalities, the suspension had all the hallmarks of an arbitrary power play, given that four other rival candidates had already been banned from Guatemala’s electoral race this year — most of them critical of President Alejandro Giammattei’s authoritarian government.
This time, even Sandra Torres — the other runoff candidate and a frequent ally of Mr. Giammattei in parliament — expressed solidarity with Mr. Arévalo by suspending her campaign until the legal restrictions on his party were lifted.
“The will of the people expressed at the ballot boxes on June 25 must be respected,” Ms. Torres said before the suspension was lifted. “We will pause our activities because we don’t want to take advantage of this situation and our country’s instability.”
Mr. Arévalo had called the suspension of his party a coup led by a group of prosecutors loyal to the president. Many of Guatemala’s judicial authorities have fled into exile during Mr. Giammattei’s tenure, as have some journalists and human rights activists.
The decision to lift the party’s suspension is still provisional, so uncertainty over the electoral process remains. Mr. Arévalo had said he would run even against the will of the courts, while Guatemala was also facing pressure from the Biden administration in the U.S. to respect a clean electoral process.
- Read more: An unpredictable runoff in Guatemala
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