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Aggressive moves by AG's office ahead of runoff cause outcry in Guatemala and beyond
Online News Editor
August 17, 2023
By David Toro Escobar
Guatemala City, Aug 17 (EFE).- Repeated attempts by Guatemala’s Attorney General’s Office to keep presidential candidate Bernardo Arevalo de Leon and his center-left, anti-graft Semilla party off the ballot have been blocked by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE).
Even so, they have served to lay bare the institutional weakness plaguing that Central American country.
“The Attorney General’s Office has become the most effective tool of (Guatemala’s) mafias and corrupt system,” former prosecutor Juan Francisco Sandoval, whom experts regard as a key figure in the country’s anti-corruption fight between 2014 and 2019, told Efe.
Speaking from exile in the United States, Sandoval said the AG’s office’s attacks jeopardize people’s ability to express their will at the ballot box.
After Arevalo de Leon surprisingly forced a presidential runoff on June 25, the AG’s office began taking aggressive steps against him.
Those moves included raids of the offices of Semilla and the TSE and arrest warrants issued against officials from those same two entities.
More:
https://www.laprensalatina.com/aggressive-moves-by-ags-office-ahead-of-runoff-cause-outcry-in-guatemala-and-beyond/