President Jimmy Morales this week paid a visit to the US where he requested that the United Nations-backed International commission against impunity in Guatemala (Cicig) be extended for a further two years until 2019. Cicig and the attorney general’s office (AG) played a crucial role in uncovering corruption scandals last year which ultimately forced Otto Pérez Molina to step down as president over allegations that he headed up a corruption ring in the tax authorities (SAT). Morales, whose small right-wing Frente de Convergencia Nacional government t
ook office in January for a four-year term, has acknowledged that his 2015 electoral victory owed to public anger with official corruption. Extending Cicig’s mandate is also crucial to securing continued US support for the ‘Alliance for Prosperity Plan (PAP)’ for the so-called Northern Triangle countries (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras). Launched in 2014 in cooperation with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the PAP seeks to tackle the root causes of the child migrant crisis, which made headlines that year.
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