Guatemala City (AFP) – Thousands of Guatemalans are mobilizing to demand the resignation of Attorney General Consuelo Porras and Prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche, whom they accuse of persecution against elected President Bernardo Arévalo. More than a week of protests has passed with persistent blockades that are beginning to generate fuel shortages and rising prices of basic products.
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Carrying Guatemalan flags – blue and white -, a crowd once again protested in front of the headquarters of the Public Ministry (Prosecutor’s Office) in the capital, while thousands of others kept a hundred stretches of road closed, with trucks, cars, motorcycles and other obstacles. roads throughout the country, the police estimated last Monday, October 9. Demonstrations that continue this October 10, the ninth consecutive of citizen mobilization.
“Out with the corrupt!”, “Out with the coup plotters!”, “Resign!” said the banners carried by the protesters in front of the Prosecutor’s Office and other state institutions, while blowing plastic whistles and bugles.
For nine days the blockades have been maintained to demand the departure of the attorney general Consuelo PorrasThe prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche and the judge Fredy Orellanaafter they ordered the electoral court to be raided due to alleged anomalies in the elections held in the first and second round, last June and August.
Backed by the United States, the European Union and other countries and international organizations, The opponent Bernardo Arévalo considers that the three officials attack democracy and seek to preventtakes over the Presidency on January 14.
Arévalo, who turned 65 this weekend, accuses them of leading an “ongoing coup d’état” because the power elites fear his promise to fight corruption.
The protests were initially called by indigenous organizations in western Guatemala and were later joined by university groups, teachers, doctors and other associations in the cities.
“Until I resign”
Several businesses, companies and markets closed their doors, which has already begun to cause a shortage of vegetables and fuel, including that used for airplanes.
“We are not going to leave here until I resign, there are people who have come to support us, they have come to leave us food. The people are well united,” he told AFP in the exclusive area of Cayalá, northeastern outskirts of Ciudad from Guatemala, a protester who covered his face with a scarf.
But the prosecutor has ruled out resigning on several occasions and on Monday she urged the security forces to act to unblock the roads.as provided by the Constitutional Court when accepting an appeal for protection presented by businessmen.
“Peaceful demonstrations are a right, blockades are a crime,” the official claimed in a video broadcast on social networks.
The prosecutor, Curruchiche and Orellana, who also endorsed the disqualification of Arévalo’s political party, are considered by the United States as “corrupt” and “undemocratic.”
“All acts outside what is established in the law will no longer be tolerated, blockades are illegal,” said President Alejandro Giammattei in a message to the nation.
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The president also ruled out that a “coup d’état” could be committed against someone who has not assumed the Presidency and acknowledged that the incidents began to get out of “control and cause chaos” harming the country’s economy.
Giammattei claimed to have evidence of foreign financing for the protests, without specifying names, after blaming Arévalo for the crisis.
He also called on the future president to hold a meeting with the delegates of the mediation mission of the Organization of American States (OAS) to ensure “the handover of power on January 14, but in a country at peace and not confronted.” “.
The mission arrived on Sunday to seek a way out of the conflict.
Site status?
Arévalo did not rule out that the situation could get out of control if the Government decrees a state of emergency.
According to the police, on Monday night a group of people infiltrated the protesters and attacked the officers, who fired tear gas to dissipate the protest in front of the Palace of Culture, the former seat of government.
Last weekend, the Constitutional Court accepted an appeal for protection to protect the presidential inauguration, but the organizers of the protests point out that they are on an “indefinite strike” until Porras resigns.
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