For now, the beginning of Guatemala’s democratic spring is on hold

Guatemala has had a handful of presidents who disrupted the status quo in the 20th century. For Juan José Arévalo (1945-51), it was about bringing Guatemala up to date with social demands: improving wages for workers in the countryside, expanding liberal education and social security, codifying civil liberties and setting up a basic welfare state. Vinicio Cerezo (1986-91) masterminded the start of the current democratic wave by safeguarding elections, after years of military dominance and abuses in the Central American country. However, by the end of his term — with the implosion of communism and the rise of the new neoliberal hegemony — the rise of the middle class in Guatemala has been slow, while democratic politics and institutions have gradually (and painfully) been eroded.

Incumbent President Bernardo Arévalo — the son of Juan José — has only been in power for five weeks, after overcoming the suffocating siege of the Corrupt Pact, an allegiance of traditional political parties, ruling elites and generals who have long exercised power in the country. It’s still unclear if he will be able to disrupt the system.

During his campaign, Arévalo Jr. waved the flag of the “new democratic spring” — a romantic yet charged phrase that garnered intergenerational support in both the cities and the countryside. It referred to the October Revolution (1944-1954) — ruined by a violent conspiracy of anti-communist landowners, politicians and religious authorities, led by the CIA — which remains, in Guatemala’s collective memory, as the “10 years of spring” in the country of “eternal dictatorship.”

President Arévalo — the leader of the progressive Seed Movement — will have to govern in complex and uncertain times during his mandate (2024-2028). Liberal democracy has been discredited as a formula to facilitate security and well-being. The tide is in favor of populism, with the establishment of neo-dictatorships defined by crude policies, climate change denial and the inability to recognize minority identities. In Latin America and around the world, they’ve rolled out the red carpet for their armies, while putting up walls and stirring rampant xenophobia in the face of immigrants.

The world has become too disorganized to go to war over the preservation of democracy (at least in Latin America). However, Guatemalan democracy was miraculously rescued by an unprecedented alliance between Indigenous peoples and international institutions, which stepped in to decry the obstacles being placed in Arévalo’s path. Now, the leading role must be played by the president and his party. But his first steps have been between tentative and erratic — the highly-anticipated green spring seems to have adopted a suspicious gray, due to the entrenchment of the Corrupt Pact. There’s a “revolving door” within the bureaucracy that is setting the stage for the first year of this administration.

President Arévalo has taken the reins of government amidst a crisis in the establishment of the rule of law, a structural problem that emerged in 2015. Coincidentally, that was the same year when the founders of the Seed Movement dreamed of building a long-term reformist political project, under the leadership of their mentor, Edelberto Torres Rivas (1930-2018), perhaps the most renowned Central American sociologist of the last century. The party was ultimately founded in 2018. Then, the following year, the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) and federal prosecutors went after the roots of corruption and impunity in the country like never before. They offered life support to the tired democracy that Vinicio Cerezo inaugurated three decades earlier. These processes excited the citizenry, which mobilized fervently.

The dispute over the rule of law is the mother of all battles in the fight for democracy. The Corrupt Pact knows this: dominating successive governments has allowed it to lavishly enrich itself with impunity. Of course, this group wasn’t invincible, as its allies faced unexpected defeat at the polls in 2023. But the powerful interests aren’t giving up. Now, they’re attacking the new government in more subtle ways.

Attorney General Consuelo Porras continues to beat the drum against the Seed Movement, while her allies in the judicial system are pushing for the criminalization of any dissent from the status quo. The lobbyists in Congress and the revolving door in the federal bureaucracy are jointly acting as the mythical Medusa: they can turn any political reformer into stone.

Removing the attorney general will be President Arévalo’s first strategic task. Otherwise, the democratic spring could be spoiled before it even begins to germinate.

Édgar Gutiérrez is a political analyst and the former Guatemalan minister of foreign affairs.

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