#guatemalan elections

[dialmforolrik]

[16/08/2023, Plaza de la Constitución, Guatemala] A woman holding the portrait of Juan José Arévalo – the first democratically elected president of Guatemala, after a popular revolution in 1944 overthrew the dictatorship – notices beside her Bernardo Arévalo, Juan José Arévalo's son and the unlikely leading candidate for president of this Central American country.

After decades of corrupt politicians pocketing up to 40% of the State's budget, Bernardo Arévalo has gather enormous popular support with his low-cost, power-to-the-people, anti-corruption campaign. This Sunday (Aug. 20th) the Guatemalan people will choose between him and her unscrupulous, foul-mouthed, anti-lgbtq, formerly imprisoned for illegal campaign financing opponent, Sandra Torres.

[my-yellow-world]

Jesús estaría con el pueblo.

(Un sacerdote atropelló a manifestantes que lo único que están pidiendo es vivir con dignidad, sin corrupción y que se respete la decisión del pueblo).

[pirateofprose]

these next elections are plagued by the worst kind of corrupt, opportunist parasites posing as hot candidates that will finally help people i hope you all get into a building at the same time and it fucking explodes

[imsobadatnicknames2]

What does the "banana republic is a fucked up name for a store" post you reblogged mean? I'm afraid of looking dumb.

The term "banana republic" was originally coined to describe countries in Central and South America (mainly Honduras and Guatemala) whose economies were rendered dependent on the production and export of bananas (among other agricultural goods, but mainly bananas) by American fruit corporations leveraging the power of the U.S. government, the U.S. military and the CIA.

Throughout most of the of the 20th century, American corporations such as United Fruit, Cuyamel, and the Standard Fruit Company owned large portions of these countries' lands, to the point that in some cases they controlled their railway, road, and port infrastructure, and they engaged in a variety of imperialist actions to lower production costs, such as violence against labor activists and anti wage reform lobbying.

The pinnacle of this phenomenon was the 1954 Guatemalan coup, when United Fruit convinced the goverment of US president Dwight D. Eisenhower that the elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Árbenz (who had expropriated some of the company's unused land and given it to Guatemalan peasants) was secretly working with the Soviet Union, resulting in a CIA coup which deposed the Árbenz government and replaced it with a thirty-year right-wing military dictatorship which effectively acted as a puppet government to protect the interests of United Fruit and the U.S. government.

Nowadays the term has broadened to refer to any small, economically unstable country with an economy which has been rendered dependent on the export of a particular natural resource due to economic exploitation by a more powerful country.

[usnewsper-business]

Jimmy Morales' party can stay despite court ruling #election #guatemala #guatemalan #jimmymorales #presidential

[usnewsper-politics]

Jimmy Morales' party can stay despite court ruling #election #guatemala #guatemalan #jimmymorales #presidential

[radiofreederry]

Happy birthday, Jacobo Arbenz! (September 14, 1913)

President of Guatemala from 1951 to 1954, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman was only the second democratically-elected leader in Guatemala's history. A lifelong progressive who was friendly with socialists and communists, Arbenz played a prominent role in the Guatemalan Revolution of 1944 which toppled the country's repressive right-wing government. as Minister of Defense under President Juan José Arévalo, Arbenz was crucial in quashing a military coup which sought to end the revolution, a portent of things to come. Arbenz was then elected President in his own right and sought to extend the revolution, including through land reform and redistribution of uncultivated land. Much of this land was owned by the United Fruit Company, which lobbied the US government for Arbenz's removal. The CIA acquiesced, launching Operation PBSuccess, a military coup that removed Arbenz from power and unleashed decades of genocidal violence on the people of Guatemala, with the backing of the United States. Arbenz, for his part, fled into exile, where he would die in 1971.

"Our crime is wanting to have our own route to the Atlantic, our own electric power and our own docks and ports. Our crime is our patriotic wish to advance, to progress, to win economic independence to match our political independence. We are condemned because we have given our peasant population land and rights."

[zvaigzdelasas]

Probably a pretty good sign about Arévalo that heritage foundation doesn't like him lmao

The results also do not bode well for America, as the current government has been pro-U.S. and a staunch American foreign policy ally, and the election of a leftist government could dramatically change all that.[...]

Arévalo hails from a new political party, Semilla. Local conservatives fear “he will make common cause with global progressives on abortion, gender identity, and a pro-LGBTQ+ platform.” Last year, Semilla unsuccessfully introduced a bill in parliament “for persons who menstruate,” a reference to “transgender” men’s rights [...]

The impact of Guatemala’s election on American national security could be severe. The current conservative government has been a staunch U.S. foreign policy ally, recognizing Taiwan over Communist China, openly backing Ukraine over Russia, and being solidly pro-Israel and pro-U.S. Other Latin American states have joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative of receiving massive loans and infrastructure investments in return for loyalty to Beijing. Recently, current Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei pledged “absolute support” for Taiwan after neighboring Honduras switched sides and recognized Beijing over Taipei.[...]

[Arévalo] has made it clear that he wants to establish closer relations with China since he believes that it is essential for Guatemala’s economic growth. Palmieri said that Guatemala’s conservative values are aligned with conservative American principles: “Guatemala is one of the U.S.’s last partners in the region that still holds conservative values such as support for a free-market economy, recognizing the hemispheric threat Communist China represents, and fidelity to the idea that the family structure is central to our lives.”

[mariacallous]

In mid-January, Phil Gordon visited Guatemala to hand deliver a letter from Kamala Harris to a man who very likely owed his presidency to U.S. diplomatic intervention.

Bernardo Arévalo de León had just been inaugurated as Guatemala’s new leader, despite efforts by the country’s outgoing government over months to derail a democratic transition of power. Gordon, the U.S. vice president’s national security advisor, was in Guatemala to attend Arévalo’s inauguration with a delegation of other high-level Biden administration officials.

The letter congratulated him on his victory and invited him to Washington for a meeting with Harris, according to a copy reviewed by Foreign Policy. But its real significance was spelled out between the lines. A senior administration official involved in the discussions said the letter was a “signal that the U.S. gives full-throated support to Arévalo and Guatemala’s democratic transition of power.”

The inauguration itself took place after midnight on Jan. 15, following a dramatic final effort by members of Guatemala’s outgoing government to halt the proceedings. Gordon and other members of the U.S. delegation were instrumental in ensuring the transition of power took place, having imposed sanctions and visa restrictions, and back channeled with other embassies to pressure Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei to accept the election results and step aside.

The democratic transition in Guatemala represents one of the clearest victories of U.S. President Joe Biden’s agenda to promote democracy worldwide, as well as a rare example of Vice President Kamala Harris’s national security team playing a distinct and direct role in shepherding it through, according to interviews with multiple administration insiders and Central America experts. The episode provides possible insights into how Harris’s foreign-policy team would work should she win the presidential election in November.

While it went relatively unnoticed in Washington, where people are largely focused on wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the U.S. maneuver to bolster democracy in Guatemala was a policy win—in stark contrast to some of the administration’s endeavors in other parts of the world. The Biden administration has faced criticism for embracing autocrats in ways that undermined his stated goals of promoting global democracy. Across West Africa, the United States has failed to stem an “epidemic” of coups that dealt a heavy blow to U.S. interests. In Afghanistan, which the United States withdrew from chaotically three years ago, democracy is more distant than ever.

“Probably the most key player for securing this transition for Arévalo was the international community and specifically the United States,” said Marielos Chang, a Guatemalan political consultant and professor at the Universidad del Valle in Guatemala.

When Biden announced his withdrawal from the presidential race last month and endorsed Harris, one of the many questions posed about the vice president was: What role had she played on foreign-policy issues? Many current and former U.S. national security officials say it is hard to discern where Harris and her small national security team have made a mark—but Guatemala stands as an exception.

Harris became the administration’s point person on Central America’s Northern Triangle region to tackle the root causes of migration, an assignment that later became a point of controversy on the campaign trail—and a source of criticism from Republicans. Migration encounters at the U.S. southern border hit a record high at the end of 2023, and border security and migration remains a major issue for both parties on the campaign trail, particularly for Republicans.

“President Biden gave Vice President Harris one job—‘border czar’—and she failed miserably,” Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said last month, echoing similar charges across the board from Republicans that the Harris campaign has sought to push back on.

Throughout her time as vice president, Harris and her national security team worked closely with Giammattei’s government to try to tackle the root causes of migration from the source, even before Guatemala’s transition crisis.

Guatemala is Central America’s most populous country and a key hub for the flow of migrants north toward the U.S. southern border.

One key initiative Harris’s team and other National Security Council (NSC) officials worked on with Giammattei was the “safe mobility office” initiative, to try to establish offices in the region where people could apply for asylum in the United States from afar or learn about the convoluted U.S. migration system before ever reaching the U.S. border.

Gordon met with Giammattei for over nine hours in one of his numerous trips to Guatemala as they hashed out these proposals, according to a senior administration official familiar with the matter. This official and others spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak on the record about internal government deliberations.

The National Immigration Forum, a nonprofit organization that tracks migration issues, has said that “much remains unclear about the offices’ operational realities” but that it is aimed at lessening the burden on immigration systems at the border and deterring people from trying to venture there in the first place.

Arévalo won Guatemala’s presidential election in August 2023 by a comfortable margin on a campaign of anti-corruption reforms. In the wake of the election, “we were starting to see signs that Giammattei’s administration was seeking to block the outcome of the free and fair elections and prevent a peaceful transfer of power,” said Katie Tobin, the former top Biden migration advisor at the NSC.

From there, Harris’s team was well placed to launch the pressure campaign on the outgoing government to accept the election results. It was also coordinated by the top U.S. diplomat at the time in Guatemala, Patrick Ventrell, and other State Department and Treasury Department officials, according to the officials familiar with the matter.

In October, the administration announced sanctions on Guatemalan officials linked to corruption. In November, Gordon traveled again to Guatemala to meet with both Giammattei and Arévalo separately to “reinforc[e] the importance of the peaceful democratic transfer of power,” according to a White House readout of the meetings at the time. Days after his visit, the Biden administration sanctioned another former top Guatemalan official for his role in “ongoing efforts to undermine the democratic transfer of power.”

Then, on Dec. 11, the State Department announced visa restrictions on nearly 300 Guatemalans, including over 100 Guatemalan members of Congress and other business elites, for “ongoing anti-democratic actions” that sought to interrupt the transition of power.

“That sent a really strong message to all politicians, that the United States was not going to be just waiting to see what happens,” Chang said. Chang said that Guatemalans paid close attention to the diplomatic campaign by the United States, and in particular the top U.S. diplomat there, Ventrell. Harris’s personal role, Chang said, wasn’t visible in Guatemala in the same way it was back in Washington in internal government deliberations.

The pressure appeared to be working, and Giammattei and his proxies began backing down. But there would be one last dramatic political battle, and members of Harris’s national security team would find themselves at the center of it.

Biden in January announced he was sending a delegation of eight senior U.S. officials to Guatemala for Arévalo’s inauguration, led by U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) chief Samantha Power. The delegation also included Gordon and Tobin, as well as Brian Nichols, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.

Lawmakers who opposed Arévalo threw up more roadblocks, delaying the special session of Congress to finish the inauguration and sparking fears of a last-minute coup. Arévalo’s supporters rallying to celebrate his inauguration grew increasingly restive and impatient as the hours dragged on, eventually clashing with riot police and gathering outside the congressional building.

The showdown also intersected with the U.S. election campaign, as one of former President Donald Trump’s top confidants, Ric Grenell, traveled to Guatemala in the days leading up to the inauguration and threw his support behind the efforts to derail Arévalo’s ascent to the presidency, as the Washington Post reported. Grenell reportedly backed hard-line conservatives who sought to block the transition and alleged that the U.S. foreign-policy establishment was trying to “intimidate conservatives” in the country. Grenell, Trump’s former acting director of national intelligence and ambassador to Germany, has emerged as one of the most influential voices in the MAGA movement advising Trump on his 2024 run.

On the day of the planned inauguration, Biden’s delegation went into crisis mode. “We were at the [U.S.] ambassador’s residence during this, for nine hours,” Tobin recalled. “The [USAID] administrator, Phil [Gordon], our charges d’affaires [Ventrell] were all making tons of calls to the outgoing government and incoming administration” and “coordinating with foreign delegations” in response to the eleventh-hour crisis, she said.

“We worked out a unified message as the international community there that we were expecting the Guatemalan government to do the right thing and uphold democratic values,” she added. They weren’t alone. Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s president, who was also in Guatemala for the inauguration and has outsized political influence in the region, vowed not to leave until Arévalo was inaugurated.

In the end, the pressure from Guatemalan protesters and the international community worked. Arévalo was sworn in shortly after midnight on Jan. 15. “That transition almost didn’t happen, until it finally did,” Tobin said.

Shortly after the inauguration, Harris issued a statement “commend[ing] the people of Guatemala for making their voices heard and this important transition.” Her team has maintained close contact with Arévalo in the months since; Gordon met him along the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany in February and Arévalo took Harris up on her offer for a White House meeting, visiting Washington in March. Giammattei, meanwhile, has been barred from entering the United States over U.S. allegations of “his involvement in significant corruption,” according to the State Department.

“A lot of people have critical views of the United States as not always a good player regarding their actions in Latin America,” Chang said, citing Guatemala among other cases. “With this specific example, however, you can see how the United States can actually help in countries that are struggling with democratic transitions.”

[hussyknee]

I'm blocking ANY American I see pulling this shit from now on. The blood is almost pouring out of our fucking televisions because of Biden. And the Dems. They deserve eternity in Hell. The Republicans are not "worse"- they just have worse manners, they are less polite - that's the only difference.

I have seen more dead children in the last three weeks than I have seen in my entire life. You would think that seeing Biden, Trump, Hillary and Bernie all support "Israel's right to self-defence" for the last solid three weeks would be a wake up call. (Bernie issued a milquetoast statement a few days that maybe this shit should stop, without saying the word "ceasefire" once.)

Imani is a prominent activist on both Black Twitter and Disability Twitter who has been consistently speaking out for all the millions of people continuing to die and become disabled from the Biden Administration's eugenicist COVID policies over the last three years.

There's also this:

This goes all the way back to Harry Truman in 1948 who was almost single-handedly responsible for the colonization of Palestine to creat Israel. But it doesn't mention that the US political establishment was actually against him at the time because they rightly said it would ruin their relations with the Middle East, and Truman's relationship with his own State Department nearly broke down over it. General Marshall, architect of the Marshall Plan, held out until 30 minutes before Britain emancipated Palestine, which was the deadline to claim what would be the initial land for the state of Israel. His decision is said to have been influenced by his Christian upbringing, despite his distaste of both Jews and Zionism.

Now why would an antisemitic white Christian be in favour of herding Jewish war refugees into Israel, where everyone knew they would have to stay fighting Palestine until it was completely defeated, which they couldn't do without relying on the US for help? 🤔 And how would the US government have stayed committed to Israel ever since? Raise your hand if you know the answer!

But no, y'all don't need a system change, just someone who will hold the line at the top against white Christian fundamentalism. There's nothing entrenched here at all. 🙃

Meanwhile:

Adrian Hemond, a Michigan-based Democratic strategist, cautioned that there is a lot of time between now and Election Day in which voters could change their minds as passions cool. And, he said, voters are highly sympathetic to Israel right now, which could benefit Biden politically.

[aerial-jace]

Guatpol Update

I've been scrolling the news these past few hours or so unable to sleep and since I said I'd post more about my own country's politics I thought to share what I have gleaned about the current top stories.

OLYMPICS!

You may not know but Guatemala actually had its first ever Olympic gold medallist (Adriana Ruano, women's trap shooting) and its first ever Olympic bronze medallist (Jean Pierre Brol, men's trap shooting). Alongside Erick Barrondo's Olympic silver medal in men's 20km racewalk from London 2012, this makes a complete set.

This is a big political story for a couple reasons, first off Ruano and Brol are getting a cash payout from the Guatemalan Olympic Committee, 3 million quetzales for the former and 1 million 250 thousand quetzales for the latter. (One Guatemalan quetzal is worth about 1/8 of a US dollar, for reference.) Second off, our recently elected president Bernardo Arevalo used last Saturday's celebration of the athletes to announce plans to spend more on sporting facilities. Very much an easy to sell proposition given the results on display.

But perhaps most importantly this is very much a political win for Arevalo personally. Due to the events surrounding our last election his government has been fighting an uphill battle to do much of anything. But something Arevalo has been able to do very effectively on his own is diplomacy and it is his diplomacy that averted Guatemala being excluded from the Olympics due to conflicts with the International Olympics Committee.

This crowd-pleaser victory may just be what he needs to keep support for his party, Movimiento Semilla, strong in spite of attacks from all other established parties. Speaking of...

LEGAL FOUL PLAY!

The current director of FECI, the legal prosecution office against corruption established after the independent UN observer body CICIG was dismantled, recently brought charges against and tried to remove legal immunity from Arevalo for allegedly wrongly dismissing a cabinet member. The cabinet member in question ignored orders to go through with a telecommunications contract that was allegedly corrupt. However, pretty much everyone agrees this is a politically motivated move, in line with a pattern of legal challenges brought since last year's elections whose actual purpose is to prevent Arevalo from governing. We will see where this goes but so far this move is being widely condemned.

COURT APPOINTMENT DELAYS!

In other legal news, the Guatemalan Supreme Court of Justice (whose members serve for 5 year terms) is yet to be appointed! We have been at this since 2019. Hurry the fuck up, goddammit. This is what a highly corrupt state and partisan fractioning gets us. At least if no more delays pop up we will maybe get this over with by September. Maybe.

BUDGET EXPANSION!

Credit where credit's due, even with a minority in congress and having to work with their direct political enemies Arevalo was able to finally approve the 14 thousand 451 million GTQ budget expansion he has been trying to get for most of the year. However, like Arevalo and Semilla's every other move, this isn't without legal challenges. At least the US ambassador seems to have expressed approval so maybe he can twist the opposition's arm into letting this one go.

TAX EVASION!

IMO the biggest story of right now is the discovery and investigation into a tax fraud and money laundering scheme to the tune of 300 million GTQ related to contracts awarded by the government of our last president, Alejandro Giammattei. This is perhaps a golden opportunity that just fell in Arevalo's lap as pursuing this scandal, a tax scandal 10 times the size of the famous 2015 La Linea scandal which gave birth to Moviniento Semilla, is perfect for the party to show its commitment to its founding principles. Here's hoping success prosecuting it strikes fear in the Guatemalan establishment and can serve as a stepping stone to reform.

[nokingsonlyfooles]

The Glitch

Heh. I rendered it for ya, Tumblr.

I've been told (repeatedly) this isn't a problem. I should know that when you say "white" you don't mean me... unless I get a little uppity (my dad, who is much browner than me, used to call me that) about being more than one thing, then I'm definitely white. Shut up. This isn't about you.

I know. It's never about me. It's never about anyone like me. I should just put myself wherever you wanted me to be, and if I guess wrong, you'll tell me. My unearned privileges are on a yo-yo string. Depends how I dress, how I code switch, who I'm near.

I understand that people who look a certain way will get treated a certain way, and then they'll act a certain way, and when they get treated white, the way they act is super irritating. OK, fam. I get it. But I see you acting that way too. I'm in the room, you don't see me, and you say some shit, which you assume is OK because everyone looks like you. And if they're not like you, you're confident you can say whatever you want because it'd be rude for them to mention it. Like Karen-the-feminist explaining that this is not the time or the place to mention that Take Your Daughter to Work Day doesn't do much for immigrant field workers.

Every time you offer me a binary choice, you're expecting me to erase half of myself without comment. If I sit down, I'm white today. If I stay standing, I'm "brown," which is... Jesus. If you thought "Black" made a monolith out of a shit-ton of identities, see what putting me in the same box with Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Guatemalans, Persians and both kinds of Indian gets you. We share a few marginalized traits but we do not all get along or need the same things.

I can't eject the white or the brown from my body on command, I can only fake it for ya to be nice. And you don't notice me doing that and think you're entitled.

I have a good dose of the autism, which I'm also expected to hide on command, so I can't help but bring media into this. You know this asshole?

He's mixed-race Creole. (And, ah, Vivzie, I'm enjoying the show, but I have... I have some notes.) I am positive this thin-skinned, narcissistic, serial-killing creep used to pass both ways, like me. I am positive he heard smiling people of both races say some real stupid shit about him and his family, to his face, and that's why he's like that. (I'm also pretty sure nobody writing for him has a clue.) But people sure do respect the serial killer and give him space. It gets better results than, "Hey, the collection of privileges you're calling 'whiteness' is a spectrum and you and I are both on it." And people react like I'm being just as much of a jackass anyway, if not more of one, although I am not literally murdering anyone about my grievance.

I am not saying I'm going to kill and eat you, my fellow activists, I'm just saying - in a gentle, loving, and metred tone - I understand.

The level of violence I inflict upon you will remain a polite reminder that I am in the room and I will not be erasing myself to conform to your language today. That seems to be difficult enough for y'all to deal with. Just, do be aware, I am still being civil. I am using my words. This is what civility looks like. Uncivil looks like drop-kicking you into a bucket of remoulade. OK? Please adjust your outrage accordingly.

(Though I have elected to share these aspects of myself with you, Tumblr void, please be aware this is only a small part of who I am, and not an invitation to define me. If you wanna talk about you, that's cool. If you wanna be friends, I will tell you how I want to be treated as we go along. I will not perform my identity in a public forum in order to justify my - polite and not-at-all murdery - request that you maybe try not to be dicks about assigning people whiteness, or brownness, or any identity that you think ought to behave a certain way.)

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

US and Brazil warn of attempt to stop Guatemala president-elect taking power

Fears Guatemalan democracy is in peril amid warning of potential coup to block inauguration of anti-corruption crusader

International concern over the future of Guatemala’s democracy is growing, as Brazil’s president warned of a possible coup to stop the president-elect taking power and the US denounced unprecedented attempts to undermine the Central American country’s election result.

The centre-left anti-corruption crusader Bernardo Arévalo was elected Guatemala’s new president last month. This week thousands of supporters took to the streets to protest against alleged attempts to block his inauguration in January.

Last week, Arévalo – the son of Guatemala’s first democratically elected president, Juan José Arévalo – temporarily pulled out of the transition process after government officials raided electoral facilities where ballot boxes were being stored. Arévalo has accused corrupt officials and politicians of launching “a plan to break the constitutional order and subvert democracy”. “A coup d’état [is] under way,” he claimed earlier this month after attempts to suspend his party, the Movimiento Semilla (Seed Movement).

Addressing the UN general assembly on Tuesday, the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, echoed Arévalo’s warning, citing the crisis in Guatemala after recent “institutional ruptures” in the African nations of Burkina Faso, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Sudan. “In Guatemala, there’s the risk of a coup, which would prevent the winner of democratic elections taking office,” Lula said.

Continue reading.

[warningsine]

The United States has secured the release of 135 political prisoners in Nicaragua after months of negotiations, the White House reported.

In statement issued on Thursday, Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor to the administration, said that these individuals were "unjustly detained on humanitarian grounds."  

Among those released are 13 members of the religious NGO Mountain Gateway, based in Texas (US). There are also "catholic laypeople, students, and others whom Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo consider a threat to their authoritarian rule,” according to the Biden administration.  

The ex-prisoners have traveled to Guatemala on Thursday morning, the Guatemalan President's office said. There they will be able to request their legal transfer to the US or other countries.

"The United States welcomes the leadership and generosity of the Government of Guatemala for graciously agreeing to accept these Nicaraguan citizens," the White House said.

In a post on X, Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo confirmed the reception of these individuals. "Welcome, Nicaraguan brothers and sisters!," he said.

Why were they detained?

Earlier this year, Nicaragua accused members of Mountain Gateway of money laundering and organized crime.  

The group, which carries out evangelistic campaigns and humanitarian work, denied the accusations.  

They also said Nicaraguan authorities were able to review their budget.  

Biden administration has called on the Nicaraguan government to "immediately cease the arbitrary arrest and detention of its citizens for merely exercising their fundamental freedoms."

Last year Nicaragua released more than 200 political prisoners

In February 2023, Ortega's government freed 222 political prisoners and expelled them from the country.

They were taken to Managua International Airport, where they boarded a flight to Washington, DC.  

Some human rights activists saw their release as a strategy by Ortega to rid himself of opponents and improve relations with the US.

The Nicaraguan Congress approved on Tuesday a legal reform that allows the prosecution of those who commit crimes against the State from abroad.

The measure imposes prison sentences of up to 30 years for those who promote sanctions against the Managua government.  

Opponents believe this decision will be used by Ortega as a "tool for transnational repression."

Who is Daniel Ortega?

Daniel Ortega is a 78-year-old former leftist guerrilla leader. He ruled Nicaragua in the 1980s after the Sandinista revolution triumphed against US-backed forces.  

He returned to power in 2007 and was re-elected three years ago in an election that was not recognized by the United States and the European Union.  

Several international organizations have accused him of taking control of all branches of the state and repressing criticism with violence.  

Relations between the Catholic Church and his government began to deteriorate when Ortega accused it of conspiring against his regime.  

In 2023, he shut down about 5,500 NGOs in the country, many of them religious.

fmf/jcg (Reuters, AP)

[zvaigzdelasas]

Bernardo Arévalo, the elected president of Guatemala was accused by the Prosecutor that the elections held this year and in which he won with 58% of the votes, must be annulled for alleged administrative irregularities of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. "We are facing an absurd, ridiculous and perverse coup", said the Guatemalan elected president, and added that 'It is time to vigorously defend our voice and the possibility of building a different country. No one should stand between the people of Guatemala and its spring'. "The putschists are giving drowning kicks, the last staggering steps for a coup," said Arévalo, who added that these actions come from a group of senior officials operating from the Public Ministry (MP), and also stressed: "The attempted coup is real and has brought us to a crucial moment in the history of our country"

9 Dec 23