Caribbean & Central America - October 2017 (ISSN 1741-4458)

President Jimmy Morales may well have breathed a sigh of relief after the national legislature voted not to strip him of immunity from prosecution last month with regard to allegations of illegal campaign financing [RC-17-09]. However, this relief is proving short-lived. The attorney general’s office (AG) has since called for him again to face investigation over another case – his receipt of a bonus from the defence ministry (which he has since returned). The latest revelations are fanning public anger with President Morales and follow the biggest anti-government protests to take place since the Frente de Convergencia Nacional (FCN-Nación) administration took office in January 2016.

In line with a complaint filed by the prominent human rights NGO Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (GAM), AG Thelma Aldana presented her latest request to the supreme justice court (CSJ) for President Morales to be stripped of his immunity from prosecution on 27 September. The case involves a monthly Q50,000 (US$6,859) ‘bonus for extraordinary responsibility’ which the armed forces had been paying to President Morales since December 2016. The bonus first came to light on 12 September, when the comptroller general revealed that it had requested information about it. Defence Minister Williams Mansilla, who has since gone into retirement in line with procedure (see sidebar), told reporters that the bonus was in recognition of the “risks” that President Morales faced in his post.

While telling reporters that it was too early to speak of any specific crime, Aldana was clear that investigations were necessary. Morales’s three predecessors, Otto Pérez Molina (2012-2015), himself forced to step down in 2015 over corruption, Alvaro Colom (2008-2012), and Oscar Berger (2004-2008), have all claimed not to have received such a bonus. The same day that Aldana presented her request to the CSJ, the comptroller general’s office said it had filed a complaint before the AG against Mansilla for having authorised the bonus in the first place, citing abuse of authority and negligence of duties.

Eight days after the comptroller general first announced it had requested further information about the bonus, over 200,000 people took to the streets in Guatemala City and other departments in the country, including Quetzaltenango, Alta Verapaz, and Chiquimula, as part of a national day of protest. Organised by civil-society groups like #JusticiaYa, and backed by various sectors, including the influential private sector lobby, Cacif, respected think-tanks like the institute for fiscal studies (Icefi), and the Coordinación de ONG y Cooperativas (CONGCOOP) indigenous organisation, the protests – the biggest show of unrest under the current government – were calling for the resignation of President Morales and members of the national 158-member unicameral legislature. Such unrest has had a pivotal impact in the past. In his balance sheet presented in mid-November 2015, Iván Velásquez, the director of the United Nations (UN)-backed anti-impunity commission in Guatemala (Cicig), whose ejection President Morales also sought in late August, had acknowledged as “unprecedented” the unrest which ultimately forced Pérez Molina to step down.

Congress faces fresh criticism

As well as its decision not to strip President Morales of his immunity from prosecution, the legislature – some members of which are also facing the prospect of investigation over illegal electoral financing – has also been widely slammed over changes to the criminal code, approved on 13 September. Among other things, the amendments would have transferred responsibility for any irregularities in campaign financing from the general secretaries of political parties to the parties’ accountants, reduced the penalty for illegal election financing from a maximum of 12 years to 10, and permitted a fine to be paid to avoid jail time. Such was the outrage sparked by the announcement of the legislative changes that congress repealed them the following day, although in any case the constitutional court (CC) had already suspended them on the grounds that they would have caused “irreparable damage to the justice system”.

Arzú faces threat of legal action

As well as calls for President Morales to be investigated, Cicig and the AG have since further ruffled political feathers: on 5 October Aldana and Velásquez called for Guatemala City mayor Álvaro Arzú, a former president (Partido de Avanzada Nacional, 1996-2000), to be investigated for corruption.

The announcement came as the two officials presented the findings of an investigation (known as Pandora) which questions Arzú’s links to the country’s most famous prisoner (Ret) General Byron Lima Oliva, killed in a prison riot in 2016. Lima, who had served as a security guard for Arzú during his presidency, had been convicted in 2001 of one of the most notorious crimes committed during the 1960-1996 civil war – the 1998 murder of Bishop Juan Gerardi.

According to Cicig and the AG, Arzú, who was elected for a fourth consecutive four-year term in 2015 for his Partido Unionista (PU) with an alliance of other parties, is suspected of using public funds for his most recent re-election bid. Between 2013-2015 he reportedly contracted a local company, Torre Fuerte (directed by Lima from behind bars), to manufacture uniforms and electoral propaganda for the PU and the alliance of political parties (comprising Compromiso, Renovación y Orden [Creo], Todos, Victoria, and Gran Alianza Nacional [Gana]), paid for with public funds. So far, the amount in question has yet to be determined. The investigation also found that fake posts had been created by the municipal government for Lima’s relatives including his partner Alejandra Reyes and her mother.

• Cabinet ministers leave

As well as General Williams Mansilla, three cabinet ministers – Francisco Rivas (security), Julio Héctor Estrada (finance), and Leticia Teleguario (labour) –resigned last month, the latest fall-out of the political crisis caused by the calls for President Morales to be investigated for corruption. In a joint statement, the three ministers were clear that their decisions stemmed from the “political crisis…[which] made us reflect on continuing in the posts”. Deputy ministers, such as Carmen Abril (finance) and Ricardo Guzmán, Vilma Xicará, and Óscar Dávila (all from the interior ministry), also stepped down. Other officials to have left their posts since the crisis erupted include Carlos Raúl Morales (foreign affairs), sacked by President Morales reportedly for failing to heed his order to expel the Cicig director and health minister, Lucrecia Hernández Mack, who quit in protest. 

• Impact on economic confidence

A report released on 2 October by Guatemala’s central bank (Banguat) suggests that the political crisis is having an impact on the economy. The report, which consulted experts, showed that business confidence in the economy had dropped to 25% down from 44.45% in August. Other private sector representatives such as Rafael Briz Méndez, the president of Spain’s official chamber of commerce in Guatemala, have also expressed similar concerns.