Threats to the Guatemalan electoral process
The following letter was sent to Minister Melanie Joly, Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs on July 6, 2023
Dear Minister Joly,
Please accept greetings from the Americas Policy Group (APG), a national coalition of Canadian organizations working for human rights and sustainable development in Latin America. We write to express our concern about current efforts by Guatemala’s Constitutional Court, along with political parties linked to corruption, to improperly use Guatemala’s legal system to overturn the results of the June 25 national elections, in which opposition candidate Bernardo Arévalo (Semilla Movement) advanced to the second round on an anti-corruption platform.
On July 1, however, a coalition of nine rival political parties filed a lawsuit in the Constitutional Court (CC) contesting the results, despite the fact that international election observers from the Organization of American States (OAS) and the European Union (EU) indicated no major issues during the vote. These political parties have failed to show any evidence to suggest that the election results were tainted or inaccurate. Furthermore, legal scholars have pointed out that the CC has no jurisdiction in the matter. Nevertheless, the CC granted a provisional injunction which paused the official certification of first round results until a review could take place. We are greatly concerned that this “review” has already violated Guatemala’s election laws, sown doubt and distrust, and set the stage for possible fraud that would remove Arévalo from the second round of elections. This potential outcome would be highly damaging for Guatemalan democracy, which is slowly rebuilding after many decades of military rule, repression, armed conflict, and genocide. The time for Canada to act is now.
The mandate letter of the Minister of Foreign Affairs includes commitments “to promote peace and security, combat authoritarianism” and counter “those who are seeking to undermine democracy, human rights and the rule of law”. As an alliance of Canadian civil society organizations working on these issues, we urge you to publicly join the international voices calling on Guatemalan courts and electoral authorities to respect the will of the Guatemalan people and immediately certify the results of the June 25 election.