So Now Comes the Attempt to Subvert the Will of the People

Bernardo Arévalo just decisively won the Presidential election in Guatemala, beating his opponent, former first lady and avatar of the corrupt establishment Sandra Torres by more than 20 points.

An anticorruption crusader won a runoff election for Guatemala’s presidency on Sunday, handing a stunning rebuke to the conservative political establishment in Central America’s most populous nation.

Bernardo Arévalo, a polyglot sociologist from an upstart party made up largely of urban professionals, took 58 percent of the vote with 98 percent of votes counted on Sunday, the electoral authority said. His opponent, Sandra Torres, a former first lady, got 37 percent.

Anti-corruption is good, but if he is just a candidate just for the professional–managerial class, and not for the poor and rural Guatemalans, he will be doomed to failure.

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Mr. Arévalo’s win is a watershed moment in Guatemala, one of Washington’s longtime allies in the region and a leading source of migration to the United States. Until he squeaked into the runoff with a surprise showing in the first round in June, it was the barring by judicial leaders of several other candidates seen as threats to the country’s ruling elites that had shaped the tumultuous campaign.

Pushing back against such tactics, Mr. Arévalo made fighting graft the centerpiece of his campaign, focusing scrutiny on how Guatemala’s fragile democracy, repeatedly plagued with governments engulfed in scandal, has gone from pioneering anticorruption strategies to shutting down such efforts and forcing judges and prosecutors to flee the country.

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Still, Mr. Arévalo symbolizes a break with the established ways of doing politics in Guatemala. The race unfolded amid a crackdown by the current conservative administration on anticorruption prosecutors and judges, as well as nonprofits and journalists like José Rubén Zamora, the publisher of a leading newspaper, who was sentenced in June to up to six years in prison.

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This institutional fragility was on display on Sunday. Blanca Alfaro, a judge who helps lead the authority that oversees Guatemala’s elections, said she planned to resign in the coming days because of what she said were threats against her. Gabriel Aguilera, another judge on the electoral authority, said he had also received threats.

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After he made it into the runoff, a top prosecutor whom the United States has placed on a list of corrupt officials tried to prevent Mr. Arévalo from running, but that move also backfired, prompting calls from Guatemalan political figures across the ideological spectrum to allow him to remain in the race. 

Notwithstanding the current support of the Biden administration, they publicly expressed disapproval of the attempts to remove Arévalo from the race.

Unfortunately, as soon as he does something that doesn't appeal to the US state security apparatus, the professionals at the State Department and CIA will no doubt start to try to destabilize his government.

His dad, Juan José Arévalo, the first democratically elected President of Guatemala was repeatedly forced into exile by US supported dictators, so one would hope that Bernardo Aréval would view US actions in his nation skeptically.