Weekly Report - 1 July 2010 (WR-10-26)

With his government still reeling from the fallout of Carlos Castresana's resignation as head of the UN backed anti-impunity commission (Cicig) earlier in the month [WR-10-25], President Alvaro Colom incurred a fresh setback last week after his finance and energy ministers, Juan Alberto Fuentes Knight and Carlos Meany, resigned, a week after his economy minister, Rubén Morales, had thrown in the towel. The three departures owe to different reasons. The loss of Fuentes, however, who left in frustration at the government's failure to approve a tax reform - one of Colom's campaign pledges and as yet an unfulfilled requirement of the 1996 Peace Accords - is a particular blow for the President, representing a victory for the conservative elites who have long opposed the move.