US ramps up pressure for peaceful transition in Guatemala

U.S. officials are making their presence felt in Guatemala, where the outgoing government has taken steps to derail a democratic transition after a surprise defeat in national elections in June.

A steady stream of congressional and administration officials have visited Guatemala over the transition period, due to end with President-elect Bernardo Arévalo’s inauguration in January.

Arévalo took Guatemalan politics by surprise in June, when he made the top two in the first round of elections. He shook the system to its core in the second round, when he won a 20-point landslide against former first lady Sandra Torres.

Most recently, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Rep. Norma Torres (D-Calif.) led a delegation with Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Laphonza Butler (D-Calif) and Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), seeking to pressure Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei to allow a peaceful transition of power.

“While we were there, the president of Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei, refused to meet with our delegation, and the country’s attorney general declared the results of the recent Guatemalan presidential election to be null and void,” Torres said Tuesday.

Kaine told reporters Monday that a meeting was scheduled with Giammattei and other top officials Friday, but “when we arrived, the president did not come.”

Giammattei’s snub came as U.S. officials are growing increasingly alarmed over his government’s efforts to discredit Arévalo or seemingly prevent the democratic transfer of power.

“Frankly, we are witnessing an attempted golpe de estado, an attempted coup d’état, where agencies with no power over the elections are trying to declare the elections null and void for the simple reason that they don’t want an anti-corruption president to take office on Jan. 14,” said Kaine, who presides over the Senate Foreign Relations Western Hemisphere Subcommittee.

The Biden administration has tightened the screws on Giammattei as well. 

On Monday, the State Department announced an expansion of visa restrictions, pulling the visas of 300 Guatemalan nationals, including more than 100 members of Congress, as well as private parties and family members.

“The United States strongly condemns ongoing anti-democratic actions by Guatemala’s Public Ministry and other malign actors who undermine Guatemala’s rule of law,” Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesperson, said in a statement.

“Most recently, the Public Ministry’s announcement of arrest warrants for electoral workers and party representatives, its request to remove the immunity of President-elect Arévalo, and its attempts to annul electoral results constitute evidence of its clear intent to delegitimize Guatemala’s free and fair elections and prevent the peaceful transition of power.”

The State Department has also sent high-level envoys during the transition period, maintaining a constant presence in the Central American country over the long interregnum.

The Guatemalan Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

The efforts to derail Arévalo have visibly damaged Giammattei’s reputation in the United States.

While he was never a favorite of the left, he was once seen as a technocrat who could stabilize the country after the chaotic presidency of former President Jimmy Morales and the corruption scandals that brought down his predecessor, Otto Pérez Molina, who resigned in 2015 and in 2023 was sentenced to eight years in jail.

Giammattei, a center-right figure who maintained a cordial relationship with the Trump administration, over the years built support from the right in the United States.

After the first round of the 2023 election, the Heritage Foundation bemoaned the results, which set up the second round for a contest between Arévalo and former first lady Torres — her ex-husband, Álvaro Colom, was president before Pérez Molina. 

But U.S. criticism of his handling of the transition has become bipartisan.

On Tuesday, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) joined by Senate Foreign Relations Chair Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Kaine and Durbin, blasted the country’s prosecutors and issued a stern warning to Giammattei.

“We call on President Giammattei to insist that Guatemalan institutions join with the private sector and civil society to advocate and respect a peaceful transition of power, as expected of every democracy. A commitment to uphold Guatemala’s place among the community of democratic nations will be crucial for the future of U.S.-Guatemala relations.”

The relationship with Guatemala has taken a greater importance as migration flows have changed over the last decade, because the country is both a source of migrants and a pathway for others coming from countries farther south.

More than 200,000 Guatemalans have been encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border per year in fiscal 2021, 2022 and 2023.

The country’s inequality and political instability are major contributors to emigration, with indigenous communities often bearing the brunt of crime and corruption.

Those indigenous communities were key to Arévalo’s victory and have been holding protests and sit-ins outside government buildings to demand a peaceful transition of power.

“We are nearly 70 percent of the country’s inhabitants, although state statistics don’t say the same, but that’s reality,” said Miguel de León Ceto, a community leader from the Ixil region.

“It’s a fight — what’s being done now is the result of organization that’s been brewing for years, not just now.”