Bernardo Arévalo, a 64-year-old sociologist and reformer, did the seemingly unattainable this week. He overcame trumped-up authorized challenges and a better-financed, establishment-backed rival to turn out to be Guatemala’s subsequent president.
Arévalo’s landslide victory — delivered by younger and middle-class voters fed up with infinite authorities dysfunction — is a watershed for Central America’s largest nation. Political machines backed by large donors and arranged crime have dominated elections there for many years, entrenching corruption, violence and poverty and driving thousands and thousands of Guatemalans emigrate to the USA.
Arévalo’s marketing campaign, run on a shoestring funds from a rented storage, broke the mould. He gained the presidency with out backing by or guarantees to vested pursuits.
It was a deeply symbolic victory. Guatemalans nonetheless keep in mind his father, the late President Juan José Arévalo, for having ushered in a “democratic spring” earlier than a 1954 CIA-backed coup thrust Guatemala into a long time of army rule. At Arévalo’s closing marketing campaign rally in Guatemala Metropolis, younger and outdated supporters alike held indicators promising “the spring will flower once more.”
Now comes the onerous half: making it occur. Arévalo has a path to achievement — and Guatemala to a future that doesn’t drive lots of of hundreds a 12 months to the U.S.-Mexico border — however each are mined with obstacles.
The president-elect and his social gathering have a commonsense, centrist agenda that the majority Guatemalans help and good political instincts to match. They don’t seem to be ideologues, and they’re able to work with political and enterprise leaders who share their targets.
The issue? Such potential allies are in brief provide. Beneath President Alejandro Giammattei, Guatemala has edged ever nearer to changing into a mafia state, and the highly effective vested pursuits that revenue from the best way issues are will battle Arévalo tooth and nail. They may even put him at risk: The Group of American States lately revealed two plots to assassinate Arévalo and the vice president-elect.
Arévalo desires to switch the politically linked cronies in state businesses with skilled professionals, cease skimming of presidency contracts and scale back hovering electrical energy and healthcare prices. However these affordable reforms are opposite to the best way Guatemala has operated for many years.
The justice system, which is stuffed with institution cronies, will likely be one impediment. In July, in a unadorned bid to cease Arévalo from competing, Atty. Gen. María Consuelo Porras opened three felony circumstances in opposition to his social gathering and requested a choose to dissolve it. Resistance from elements of the personal sector, civil society teams and overseas embassies foiled the plan, however the circumstances stay open.
Porras, who can’t be faraway from her put up till 2026, is pushing forward with politically motivated investigations of Arévalo’s social gathering and unbiased election officers. At worst, the circumstances might dissove the social gathering and hobble its lawmakers. Some concern the opposition-controlled Congress might even seize a chance to delay or stop Arévalo’s January swearing-in.
Even when Arévalo’s social gathering dodges that, it holds solely a couple of seventh of the seats within the nation’s Congress. The remaining are managed by political machines and hard-line conservatives who mistrust Arévalo. Leaders of Arévalo’s social gathering advised me they saved the scope of their agenda modest figuring out that they’d be coping with a hostile Congress.
However simply passing primary laws such because the annual funds will likely be an uphill battle. Arévalo’s social gathering has pledged to not dole out public contracts, Cupboard posts or money, the standard technique of currying favor amongst legislators.
Some enterprise leaders rallied behind Arévalo’s reform agenda. However most have been publicly silent as the present president chipped away at democracy and persecuted critics. And a few influential tycoons are useless set in opposition to Arévalo.
Navigating the personal sector’s many factions whereas with out watering down his agenda will likely be troublesome. A few of his social gathering’s bolder proposals, akin to passing an antitrust regulation and taking up a robust pharmaceutical cartel, are certain to trigger rigidity.
Then there would be the problem of assembly the expectations of his personal supporters. Once I requested Samuel Pérez, the 31-year-old chief of Arévalo’s social gathering in Congress, what can be the best problem of governing, he didn’t hesitate: “Managing the expectations of the Guatemalan individuals. As a result of proper now, the hope we now have generated is big.”
There’s nonetheless motive to hope that the president-elect can fulfill a few of his guarantees. Just by refusing to award contracts and jobs primarily based on political connections, he might scale back rampant corruption. With out management of the presidency lining their wallets — and funding their campaigns — machine politicians in Congress could understand they’re susceptible to shedding reelection and alter their tune.
Endemic corruption, unhealthy authorities and pervasive crime drive many Guatemalans to desert the nation yearly. If Arévalo governs as prudently as he campaigned, Guatemala has a great shot at fixing its damaged establishments and giving extra of its individuals motive to remain.
Will Freeman is a fellow for Latin America research on the Council on Overseas Relations.
