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Caribbean & Central America - August 2015 (ISSN 1741-4458)

GUATEMALA: The net widens ahead of the elections

With the 6 September general elections looming, the recent anti-corruption drive led by the attorney general’s office (AG) and United Nations-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (Cicig) is not just proving damaging for the Partido Patriota (PP) government led by President Otto Pérez Molina [RC-15-07] but the political opposition. This month the supreme justice court (CSJ) appointed an investigating judge to determine whether Édgar Barquín Durán, the running mate of Manuel Baldizón, the presidential candidate of the main opposition Libertad Democrática Renovada (Líder) party, should be stripped of his immunity and investigated for alleged influence trafficking and illicit association. With five Líder national deputies also facing the prospect of legal action for alleged corruption and Líder’s main competition in the presidential vote, the Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE) party of former president, Alvaro Colom (2008-2012), implicated in a recent Cicig report on political party financing, the credibility of Guatemala’s political class would well and truly appear in tatters.

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