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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Coup Attempt in Guatemala: Attorney General Tries to Invalidate President-Elect Arévalo’s Victory</h1>December 9, 2023</div>
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<p><img width="440" height="293" src="https://orinocotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Guatemala-coup-attempt.webp" alt="Guatemalan President-elect Bernardo Arévalo (center) marches with supporters and political and indigenous leaders, in Guatemala City, Guatemala, December 7, 2023. Photo: EFE/David Toro." class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;"> </p>
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Guatemalan President-elect Bernardo
Arévalo (center) marches with supporters and political and indigenous
leaders, in Guatemala City, Guatemala, December 7, 2023. Photo:
EFE/David Toro. </p>
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<p>The attorney general of Guatemala tried to invalidate
President-elect Bernardo Arévalo de León’s presidential victory,
claiming that the general elections in which Arévalo was elected was
plagued with irregularities that would merit a declaration of nullity.
This statement, made on Friday, December 8, is being interpreted by
various sectors as a coup attempt against the elected government.</p>
<p>“The voting records of the closing of the scrutiny are null and void
for the general elections of president and vice president, deputies of
the Congress of the Republic by national list, deputies of the Congress
of the Republic by electoral district, municipal corporations, and
deputies to the Central American Parliament, because these records were
not authorized by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal,” said a representative
of the Attorney General’s Office, Leonor Morales Lazo, who is in charge
of presenting the case to the press.</p>
<p>Morales Lazo claimed that the TSE had delegated its own functions “to
national and international third parties,” in allusion to the
acquisition of a software “that served as a platform for the electoral
event.” According to the Attorney General’s Office, the electoral
software was used to commit fraud in the counting of votes.</p>
<p>Before Morales Lazo, the director of the Office of the Special
Prosecutor against Impunity, Rafael Curruchiche, spoke to the press,
announcing the invalidation of the elections. Curruchiche and Attorney
General Consuelo Porras have been condemned by the Puebla Group for
carrying out a lawfare to prevent President-elect Arévalo from taking
office. In August, the legal status of Arévalo’s party, Semilla
Movement, was suspended by the judiciary.</p>
<p><strong>Electoral Tribunal responds: ‘The results are unalterable’</strong><br>
In response to the declarations of the Attorney General’s Office, the
Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) of Guatemala stated that the results of
the elections, in which Bernardo Arévalo de León emerged victorious,
“are unalterable.”</p>
<p>“We have a president and a vice president who have been accredited
and must take office,” the president of the TSE, Blanca Alfaro, said in a
press conference held by the electoral body on Friday.</p>
<p>Alfaro ratified that both Arévalo and Vice President-elect Karin
Herrera must be sworn in on January 14, 2024, in strict adherence to the
Guatemalan Constitution.</p>
<p>“There is no way that the Supreme Electoral Tribunal could repeat any
election,” Alfaro emphasized. “If the elected authorities are not sworn
in, there would be a breach of the constitutional order.”</p>
<p>She explained that no authority can annul the elections “except if an order comes from the Constitutional Court.”</p>
<p>She added that she was “surprised” at the statements coming from the
Attorney General’s Office and stressed that the elections were carried
out in strict adherence to the pertinent laws.</p>
<p><strong>OAS denounces coup attempt</strong><br>
On Friday, the Organization of American States (OAS) called the actions
of the Guatemalan Attorney General’s Office a “coup attempt.”</p>
<p>“The General Secretariat of the Organization of American States
condemns the coup attempt by the Office of the Attorney General of
Guatemala,” the OAS said in a statement.</p>
<p>“The attempt to annul the general elections of this year constitutes
the worst form of rupture of democratic order and the consolidation of a
political fraud against the will of the people,” the statement added.</p>
<p>It is interesting to see anti-coup statements coming from the OAS
this time, given the organization’s track record in having supported a
number of coups across Latin America, including in Guatemala itself in
1954, against then President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, and more recently in
Bolivia in 2019 against the elected government of Evo Morales, and in
Peru last year against President Pedro Castillo who is still in prison.</p>
<p>(<a href="https://ultimasnoticias.com.ve/noticias/mundo/crisis-en-guatemala-por-intento-de-golpe-de-estado-contra-arevalo/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Últimas Noticias</a>) with Orinoco Tribune content</p>
<p>Translation: Orinoco Tribune</p>
<p>OT/SC/AF</p>
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