LatinNews Daily - 23 October 2023

* Guatemala’s national roads authority (Provial) has announced the lifting of the nationwide blockades staged by indigenous groups calling for Guatemala’s discredited attorney general (AG), María Consuelo Porras, to quit. President-elect Bernardo Arévalo, who won the 20 August presidential run-off on the pledge to tackle institutional corruption, has named Porras as a co-conspirator in a coup aimed at preventing the transfer of power in January. Indigenous leaders like Luis Pacheco, the president of indigenous organisation 48 Cantones de Totonicapán, which was among the groups to begin the nationwide strikes on 2 October, have told reporters that the blockades had been lifted as part of a “reorganisation strategy” but protests would continue. The blockades have resulted in major disruption to the economy and to supplies of basic goods; on 14 and 15 October Guatemala’s chamber of commerce, a private sector lobby, posted a series of messages on social media warning that 11 days of blockades had cost some Q10bn (US$1.3bn) in losses and 80% of hotel reservations had been cancelled, among other things.