Guatemala on the brink...again

Jacob Lesniewski explains how limited democratic progress in Guatemala that has coincided with CICIG's growing successes is threatened by President Morales' recent attacks against the independent body in From Anti-Corruption to Democracy in Guatemala.

The Morales administration’s seemingly (for now) successful campaign against CICIG is troubling for several reasons, not the least of which is that it threatens to turn back the clock on the past five years of expanding democratization in Guatemala that culminated in the 2015 protests and similar protests in 2017. A slow-rolling self-coup that retrenches the same corrupt elite and re-militarizes the Guatemalan government has all the potential to demobilize and demoralize the newly politicized young urban middle class “hijos de la plaza” (children of the central square) and the reinvigorated public university student union that has retaken its traditional position at the center of left politics in recent years.

These young people have been at the forefront of massive mobilization at the University of San Carlos, the public university in Guatemala that was a traditional site of left politics until the repression of the 1980s, a new political party that the most procedurally democratic and transparent one in recent memory, and the emergence of a broad progressive, democratic culture of political groups and debate in Guatemala City, the nation’s capital, and Quetaltenango (Xela), the largest city in the indigenous Western Highlands.

The current crisis reveals the limits of anti-corruption as a tool for social, political, and economic reform or liberation. Anti-corruption is not effective on its own in ensuring democratic control of politics, society, and economics. In a country like Guatemala, where the state and organized crime are co-opted and managed by a long-entrenched oligarchy that operates Guatemala as its own personal finca (plantation), CICIG’s anti-corruption efforts are valuable in that they open spaces for social movements to operate more freely. Its efforts to break the oligarchy’s grip on power by striking at illicit campaign financing has opened spaces for burgeoning social movements among indigenous and campesino communities.

These movements, which emerged from the (oftentimes literal) ashes of the violence of the civil war have coalesced around a radically democratic platform of constitutional reform that would move Guatemala away from a centralized republic to a pluri-national democracy, renationalization of privatized public goods like the electricity grid, and a ban on megaprojects like mines or hydroelectric dams without previous consultation with affected indigenous communities.

CICIG has not worked alone in Guatemala for the last ten years. They have had terrific partners in the Public Ministry and, at times, some other national institutions. The people of Guatemala have consistently demonstrated their approval of CICIG through public opinion polls and occupying public spaces when it has come under attack. The United States, Sweden, the European Union, and the international community more broadly have stood beside them. They have really been outspoken and threatening when they've had to be.

In recent weeks and months, the coalition that has worked with CICIG has shown serious signs of decay. Although she is now scheduled to speak later today, Attorney General Porras has been absent during this time of crisis. The United States has been diplomatic in its response to CICIG, which has been read by all as a sign of weakness. And while the Guatemalan people have mobilized once again in support of CICIG, it might not have done so in a way to raise the costs for the Morales administration.

Fortunately, the Constitutional Court has once again stood up to the unconstitutional orders of President Morales. They unanimously rejected Morales' effort to prevent Commissioner Velasquez from re-entering the country to complete his work as unconstitutional. However, that has not stopped Morales. AG Porras' speech to the nation today is critical to the future of democracy and CICIG in Guatemala.