As Guatemalans vote, what is undermining their faith in democracy?

With Guatemalans heading to the polls Sunday for elections that range from the municipal to the presidential, confidence in the nation’s electoral system is hitting the lowest point since the 1985 transition to democracy.

Even as a record number of political parties have registered for the election, the Electoral Court has disqualified several top candidates over what are widely seen as political charges.

Contributing to the preelection turmoil, Guatemala’s independent judiciary has been destabilized, with its members more and more often in jail, under death threats, or in exile.

More than 25 judges and prosecutors have fled Guatemala in the face of pressure to drop large-scale corruption investigations or following threats and intimidation. Attorney General Consuelo Porras has suspended the immunity of some judges working on high-stakes cases, rendering them vulnerable to retribution.

The tumultuous run-up to the presidential elections underscores how far Guatemala has fallen in recent years – from having one of Latin America’s most admired anti-corruption judicial systems to the situation today, when judges and journalists are openly threatened.

The reason, say analysts, is that the country’s powerful elite – typically part of the political or business classes and military families – has felt threatened by court cases that have drawn attention to them in recent years, compelling many to lash out at judges and prosecutors.

“We’ve seen this in El Salvador and Nicaragua, too,” says Miguel Ángel Gálvez, a former high-risk court judge, exiled since November. “The first step for authoritarian leaders is to take over the judiciary.”

Moises Castillo/AP

Indigenous leader Thelma Cabrera, who had hoped to become Guatemala's next president, arrives at the closing campaign rally for the Movement for the Liberation of the People, in Guatemala City, June 22, 2023. The country's Electoral Court barred her from running.

“Breaking the record”

Thirty parties have registered for the elections, in which voters will select a president, members of Congress, mayors, and city councilors. But the commotion surrounding the election has led many to lose faith: Confidence in the electoral system has fallen to a historic low of 20%, according to recent polls.

“I don’t see any point in voting in these elections,” says Paulo Estrada, whose father and uncle were among the 183 victims of the Diario Militar, a dictatorship-era military operation on which Guatemalan judges are still working to hold aggressors accountable.

The Electoral Court “took out anyone who doesn’t agree with impunity, corruption, organized crime, and drug trafficking,” he says, referring to the exclusion of leading candidates, including his favorite, Thelma Cabrera, an Indigenous human rights defender.

Political polarization has triggered the recent plunge in confidence in democracy, analysts say. At its root, many see the unraveling of the International Commission Against Impunity (CICIG), which was established in 2007 as the first U.N.-backed anti-corruption panel in the world. The commission trained prosecutors and served as a beacon of hope for many in a region notorious for sky-high levels of impunity and corruption. But not everyone was pleased.

CICIG “was seen as a threat to historic elites,” says Eduardo Nuñez, director of Guatemala’s chapter of the National Democratic Institute, a U.S. nonprofit that aims to strengthen democratic institutions globally. The government did not extend its mandate, forcing it to close in 2019.

Since then, judges and prosecutors who worked closely with CICIG have been targeted for their anti-impunity work that sometimes implicates the nation’s most powerful citizens.

Mie Hoejris Dahl

Paulo Estrada, a human rights defender and civil prosecutor whose favorite candidate was barred from running, says, “I don’t see any point in voting in these elections."

This is not the first time that the Electoral Court has excluded candidates from a presidential election. Two of three leading candidates were not allowed to run in 2019. But what makes this weekend’s vote so complex is the scale of anti-democratic moves, such as the use of the judicial branch to disqualify key candidates. “We’re breaking the record on that,” Mr. Nuñez says.

“The message has been that if you do not align [with those in power], you go into exile,” says Mr. Estrada, a member of Famdegua, an association for survivors of human rights violations and their relatives.

The solution?

Judge Gálvez, who fled Guatemala last year, is known for his work investigating the Diario Militar case and genocide charges against former President José Efraín Ríos Montt. He now lives in Costa Rica.

Removing his glasses to wipe away tears one recent morning, he says the attacks on his person, and on his reputation, became “too much” last year. He was being followed by people in cars without license plates, and unknown individuals pressured his secretary to reveal details of his daily movements. He believes he and his family were targeted because of his high-profile caseload.

Judge Gálvez was one of six members of a specialized court that rules on the most serious crimes in the country. Three of its members have gone into exile since last year.

The government’s “solution” to uncomfortable criminal charges against politicians, former military officers, and members of Guatemala’s powerful business class “was to get rid of us,” says Juan Francisco Sandoval, head of the special prosecutor’s office from 2015 to 2021. He oversaw corruption cases against three former presidents, and weeks before Attorney General Porras dismissed him, he was investigating corruption charges that implicated outgoing President Alejandro Giammattei’s administration.

A Guatemalan court has issued five arrest orders for Mr. Sandoval on charges that he and international observers say are fabricated. He now lives in exile in Washington, but remains involved in Guatemalan affairs. “I receive so many messages” from citizens about wrongdoing in Guatemala and the need for change, he says. “That motivates me to keep going.”

Moises Castillo/AP

Judge Miguel Ángel Gálvez during a court hearing recess, in Guatemala City last year. He says death threats against him increased following his decision to order nine former police and military officers to stand trial for a range of alleged crimes during that country’s civil war.

“The whole movie”

There was a moment when Guatemala seemed to be moving in another, more democratic direction.

The creation of CICIG in the early 2000s led to high-profile investigations and what for many felt like an end to official impunity. Leaders like former President Otto Pérez Molina were forced to resign and sent to prison. But the commission’s investigation into the family of then-President Jimmy Morales in 2018 provoked a political backlash.

“Eventually CICIG went beyond its mandate,” says María Isabel Bonilla, associate researcher at the National Economic Research Center, a Guatemalan think tank. She argues it could have done more for the country if it had limited itself to training prosecutors, instead of kicking up dust on past war crimes or trying to leave its mark on the nation’s constitution.

Despite the dozens of prosecutors, judges, and others forced out of Guatemala in recent years, not everyone agrees the nation is in crisis.

“You cannot just look at a photograph. You have to watch the whole movie,” says Juan Carlos Zapata, director of the Foundation for the Development of Guatemala, a local think tank. “It looks like there’s political persecution,” he says. But he believes these are simply “pendulums in justice.” Economic and political elites, as well as members of the judicial branch, have been harassed in recent years, too, he points out.

Mr. Nuñez also sees this moment as a pendulum swing. “The current movement ... favors actors who are in power today,” he says. But eventually, “they will face limits.”

That won’t happen before this weekend’s election, however, to the frustration of people like Judge Gálvez. “They are not giving any space for anyone who is not ‘theirs’ to be in power.”