CICIG is shaking the region's political elite

Jose Cabezas / Reuters

Whitney Eulich tackles How Guatemala's anti-corruption drive is shaking its political elite for the Christian Science Monitor. There's some commentary from Anita Isaacs and me in the article as well.

Q: Could the protests influence regional neighbors?

They already have. Large-scale, peaceful protests cropped up in neighboring Honduras in May, with many protesters pointing directly to Guatemala as inspiration. “Watching Guatemalans unite to demand more from their government, I realized we can do that, too,” says Carla Piñosa, a teacher at a July protest in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa.

Across the border in El Salvador, where gang violence is on the rise, there’s buzz on social media about the need for citizen protests and their own version of CICIG.

If I remember correctly, I said the same thing to Whitney (well, it could have been someone else). While I support the adoption of similar international commissions against impunity in El Salvador and Honduras, I think that CICIG's success in Guatemala will affect the processes in Honduras and El Salvador even if they don't adopt international commissions.

The public protests in Honduras have forced the government to create some internal commission against impunity. I imagine that the fiscalias in both countries will also confront pressures from society that will require them to respond with some examples of progress just to convince the peoples of those countries that they are do something and that they don't need international assistance.

See also Is a “CICIH” the answer to Honduras’ Crisis? I'm still not sure why $12 - $15 million a year for an international commission is prohibitively expensive.

Meanwhile, Guatemala's Congress today elected Juan Alfonso Fuentes Soria as the country's new vice president.

Fuentes is a dentist who headed a presidential commission on human rights and was rector of the University of San Carlos in Guatemala. 

He is the third vice president in the last six months. He'll only serve until January - unless criminal charges emerge against President Maldonado. Nah, that'll never happen.