Guatemala: new demonstration for the resignation of President Giammattei
Guatemala: new demonstration, Saturday December 5, to demand the resignation of President Alejandro Giammattei and his government, in the capital Guatemala Ciudad.
AP - Moises Castillo
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
Once again this Saturday, December 5, hundreds of people demonstrated in the capital of Guatemala to demand the resignation of President Alejandro Giammattei, whom they accuse of governing in an opaque manner and to demand that social problems such as poverty and poverty be resolved. child malnutrition.
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"Dehors Giammattei" chanted the demonstrators who occupied for the third consecutive Saturday a square in the historic center of the Guatemalan capital.
The day before, the president had called on citizens to dialogue in an attempt to appease the crisis triggered by the adoption of the state budget for 2021. A budget which, according to the demonstrators, did not respond to the most urgent problems of the country.
Vice-President Guillermo Castillo joined this call for dialogue.
However, on November 20, he proposed to Mr. Giammattei that they resign together "for the good of the country", accusing him of not responding to citizens' demands for transparency.
President Giammattei announced that, from this week, a consultation would be opened with social organizations to reflect on the distribution of the state budget for the year 2021. Parliament suspended the budget on 23 November, whose adoption had provoked violent demonstrations during which the seat of Parliament was set on fire.
The president also announced the dissolution on December 31 of the Center of Government, a body deemed ineffective and unnecessary by protesters and the opposition, and an assessment of the work of ministers in office.
A call for dialogue denounced by the opposition
"
It is a technique (the call for dialogue) that (Giammattei) uses to give bread and games (to the people) and that we are satisfied, but we want structural changes
," explained to the Agency. France press Camila Hernandez, student manager of the private university Rafael Landivar.
“
We want deep changes, not superficial nonsense
” and “
Let's change the system at the root.
Resign the corrupt
”, could one read on the signs brandished by the demonstrators, accompanied by musicians, reports AFP again.
A very degraded economic and social situation
Guatemala, which suffered the full brunt of hurricanes Eta and Iota in November (700,000 Guatemalans lost their crops there), is also severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to projections by CEPAL, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (June), at the end of 2020, more than 21% of the Guatemalan population (17 million inhabitants) will live in a situation of extreme poverty and nearly 60% in a situation of poverty.
A deteriorated situation in particular because of the drastic drop in remittances from Guatemalan migrants.
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To read also
: In Central America, hurricanes ETA and Iota left a field of ruins and desolation
To these economic and social difficulties is added the endemic violence which pushes the population to emigrate.
with agencies
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