Between Bernardo Arévalo (Montevideo, 65 years old) who did not appear in a single pool to win the elections in June and the president-elect who will take office this Sunday as the new president of Guatemala, there are a dozen people difference: those who this Saturday They surround him wherever he goes in a hotel in zone 10 of the capital. Advisors and security personnel bustle around this sociologist and former deputy while he attends to the media, greets the phone of a tiktoker who excitedly asks him for a greeting for his followers or meets with the delegations that visit him for his investiture: from the King of Spain, to the ambassadors of the Organization of American States or the high representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Politics of Security, Josep Borrell.
His eyes betray fatigue after six months shaping a government plan to fulfill the promise to fight corruption while facing a veritable ordeal of judicial processes, but he says he feels “energized.” The son of former president Juan José Arévalo (1945-1951) has denounced in recent months an attempted coup d'état perpetrated by the Public Ministry headed by prosecutor Consuelo Porras to prevent his inauguration and get his party, the Semilla Movement, out of the way. .
Before landing unexpectedly on the front line of Latin American politics, Arévalo was already recognized for his character of dialogue and his career in conflict resolution, two characteristics that will be very useful to him in the difficult task he has proposed of “recovering the institutions and combat corruption” in order to later bring development to the country. He will do it with part of the judiciary against it and with a minority in Congress.
Aware of the expectations that his proposal for change has generated in a sector of the population, the president-elect hopes that Guatemalans understand the challenge that the Government faces in fulfilling its electoral offers. “The needs of the country are enormous in each of the areas. We are not going to solve it in four years, but we can lay the foundations for a different way of governing, and I think that is what people are going to judge,” says the president-elect in an interview with EL PAÍS the day before. of his investiture.
Ask. Did you expect the transition to be so difficult?
Answer. No. We have had a six-month transition period that has been an obstacle course, in which every morning one got up to see what new atrocity the corrupt had come up with, and we are not done. We are waiting to see what they do between today [sábado] and tomorrow [domingo] at four p.m [11 de la noche en la España peninsular]but it has also been a period where what has been very energizing is seeing that precisely these difficulties have catalyzed the will of the Guatemalan people and there has been a strengthening of that conviction that we cannot go back, that there was already an electoral result, that this electoral result implies turning the page of history, closing the chapter of that brutal corruption and beginning to build the foundations of a democratic society where institutions are effectively at the service of the people.
Q. The deadline is until four in the afternoon on Sunday. What do you expect to happen?
R. Well, tomorrow we have to see what happens in Congress, what is the result of the discussions around the board of directors, if we are going to have a constructive board of directors, with which we will be able to work, or if it will remain in the hands of the current Government party which, we have already seen, its only purpose is going to be to try to torpedo all political action. We do not know if legally they can come up with some absurdity, although the Constitutional Court has been increasingly categorical and has been bridging the gaps for that, so we will be waiting, but with the confidence that in the end that will not happen. change the result or the fact that we are going to take possession.
Q. His main electoral offer was the fight against corruption. How exactly is it going to be realized? He has spoken of creating a National Commission Against Corruption.
R. It will not be a government commission that is subordinate to the President of the Republic or anyone, but it will be autonomous. There will be government officials, but also civil society officials who will be participating in the majority to avoid suspicion. This National Anti-Corruption Commission will have a task that will be to advance in the construction of a national anti-corruption system through, on the one hand, the design of mechanisms and strategies that serve to put a stop to the corrupt practices that exist in the different areas of public institutions and, on the other hand, to monitor the action of institutions of all powers, the executive branch in particular, to ensure that the objectives of promoting transparency and fighting corruption are effectively being met.
Q. In the case of Consuelo Porras, you have been very clear: you are going to ask for her resignation, but it is very likely that she will resist. What mechanisms do you plan to implement if that happens?
R. We are examining from a legal point of view what avenues we have so that, in the event that she does not want to resign, we can move forward to remove her from that role.
Q. In your Cabinet presentation, you acknowledged that you have a debt with the indigenous communities. There is only one minister out of 14 who represents the indigenous peoples, despite the fact that they have allowed you to be inaugurated with their resistance. Why has it been so difficult for you and how is your Government going to try to pay off that debt?
R. First: we recognized it; Second: we have several indigenous vice ministers and secretaries. What happens is that there are structural reasons that limit the supply: historical discrimination, the denial of access to education that exists and that affects indigenous peoples has meant that the availability of indigenous professional cadres is lower than in the rest of the population. On the other hand, there is no knowledge of availability either, so what we have started to do is build a bank of indigenous professionals, but we have done it in dialogue with the indigenous leadership to from there begin to identify those people who can occupy those positions.
Q. Another criticism that has been received regarding the Cabinet comes from more progressive sectors by some ministers who are associated with being close to the Cacif. [la principal cámara empresarial]. Has there been any change in your vision of the relationship with private companies since you won the elections, any type of negotiation?
R. There has been no negotiation.
Q. Dialogues?
R. We have had dialogues with Cacif, with business organizations that are not part of Cacif, with peasant organizations, with indigenous organizations, with women's organizations… We have opened a process of dialogue with the sectors, so that the decisions that we are taking do not result from negotiations that are carried out in that traditional sense and that, then, the Cacif tells us: “Take me two.” What we have done is select those who come from different areas based on the experience they have and, in the areas where we have identified people who come from private sector experience, it is because they have the necessary experience and the necessary capacity to do it at that time.
Q. In this context of judicialization of your party, has it been difficult for you to form a Cabinet? Have many people told you no, perhaps out of fear of persecution?
R. We have had a lot of people and
of all kinds. We have had candidacies for vice ministers, candidacies for indigenous vice ministers who have told us no. It's something generalized. It is not easy to say yes to any cabinet offer in a Government that comes with important challenges.
Q. The role of the international community has also been very important in condemning judicial interference in the transfer of power. What do those countries now expect from you, for example, in the case of the United States?
R. What they expect from us is behavior consistent with our commitment to the democratic system. What we need is to create institutions that effectively fulfill their function and that, then, begin to take on the development challenges that correspond to them. The United States, for example, is very interested in having a real commitment in the fight against drug trafficking, which is almost impossible in a Government that is undermined by corruption. Border countries want to talk about issues such as migration and are interested in seeing that there is indeed a Government that is not willing to surrender to the human trafficking networks that are operating. I believe that we have had such broad and varied international support from an ideological point of view that the only thing it shows is that it has been clearly identified that what there is in Guatemala is a fight for democratic institutions.
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