Bernardo Arévalo summons his nemesis, Attorney General Consuelo Porras

One of the first decisions made by Bernardo Arévalo after taking office as president of Guatemala was to invite his nemesis to his office: Attorney General Consuelo Porras, who tried unsuccessfully to derail the investiture of the progressive sociologist and his political party, the Seed Movement. The official is summoned to the presidential office on January 24 to present a detailed report on different issues during her term at the head of the under-fire Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Last September, amid the attempts by the Public Ministry to prevent the transfer of power, Arévalo accused Porras of leading an attempted “coup d’état.” At the same time, in the weeks prior to his investiture, the president said he would ask for Porras’ resignation. However, this will not prove an easy task.

Porras can only be removed from her position if there is a prior conviction against her, according to a ruling by Guatemala’s Constitutional Court. The justices rejected the requests that sought to pave the way for the removal of the attorney general, who was sanctioned in May 2022 by the United States due to her “participation in significant acts of corruption.”

Porras headed repeated judicial attempts to disqualify the Seed Movement, as well as issuing arrest warrants against the magistrates of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal and ordering the seizure of boxes containing the results of presidential elections held on June 25 and August 20. Over the past three months, thousands of Indigenous people from all over the country maintained an uninterrupted sit-in in front of the headquarters of the Public Ministry in Guatemala City demanding Porras’ resignation for attempting to subvert “the popular will expressed in the ballot boxes.”

President Arévalo has asked Porras to tender a report on her criteria for criminal prosecution in cases of freedom of expression, the most notorious being that of journalist José Rubén Zamora, who has been in detention since July 2022. Arévalo also demanded progress in the investigation into anomalies in the purchase of Covid-19 vaccines. Furthermore, he asked the Attorney General’s Office to report on the advances it has made in criminal proceedings linked to Inter-American Court of Human Rights rulings. Porras’ response to Arevalo’s summons is not yet known.

Congress remains in limbo

Another open front for the Seed Movement is the Guatemalan Congress: the deputies will once again elect a president of the Chamber by mandate of the Constitutional Court. Samuel Pérez Álvarez, of the Seed Movement, was elected after a long day of tension on January 14, but will relinquish his seat for the new vote, the date of which has not been set. “We are not going to enter into a rigged battle. The Constitutional Court will not agree with us, because its objective is to attack popular sovereignty,” said Pérez. " We are going to step aside from our two spaces on the board of directors to protect the governance of the country and promote the legislative agenda, maintaining the agreements reached with the majority that we have built in Congress.”

Last Wednesday, the Constitutional Court provisionally accepted several legal appeals against the election of the new congressional board of directors, presided by Pérez. The court indicated in a statement that it endorsed an appeal filed by Congresswoman Sandra Jovel, who lost out to Pérez in the election to the presidency of Congress. A former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jovel argues that several of the deputies on the board of directors belong to the Seed Movement, which is legally suspended and, therefore, cannot form part of the presidency or the commissions.

The suspension of the Seed Movement was imposed by order of criminal judge Fredy Orellana, who is also under U.S. sanctions for corruption and is investigating alleged “anomalies in the creation” of the political party five years ago.

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