After months of uncertainty, the inauguration ceremony of Guatemala's president-elect, Bernardo Arévalo, has been delayed by the parliament controlled by the new opposition. The ceremony was due to begin at 14 p.m. local time (15 GMT) on Sunday 21 January.
But there were debates in the chamber about whether MPs from the party with which he won the election should be registered as independents. They continued at 23:<> GMT.
"MPs have a responsibility to respect the will of the people as expressed at the ballot box. They are trying to violate democracy with trifles, abuses of power," Arévalo wrote on the social network X.
Los diputados tienen la responsabilidad de respetar la voluntad popular expresada en las urnas.
Se está intentando vulnerar la democracia con ilegalidades, nimiedades y abusos de poder.
El pueblo guatemalteco y la comunidad internacional están observando.
— Bernardo Arévalo (@BArevalodeLeon) January 14, 2024
"What they are doing is delaying the installation of parliament, of the tenth legislature, because they don't want to give power to President Arévalo," said lawmaker José Ines Castillo.
Outside parliament, hundreds of supporters of Bernardo Arévalo broke through police roadblocks to approach the building, Agence France-Presse (AFP) found.
Clashes between supporters of Bernardo Arevalo and police outside the Guatemalan parliament in Guatemala City, Sunday, Jan. 14, 2024. © Martin Bernetti, AFP
The prosecutor's office and Guatemalan Attorney General Consuelo Porras, placed on a list of "corrupt" actors in the United States Department of Justice, had obtained the provisional suspension of Bernardo Arévalo's party for alleged irregularities when it was created in 2017.
The prosecutor's office had also tried to obtain the annulment of the elections or the lifting of the immunity of Bernardo Arévalo and his vice-president-elect, maneuvers roundly denounced by the United States, the EU, the UN and the Organization of American States (OAS).
Bernardo Arévalo slams 'slow coup'
Chilean President Gabriel Boric, Colombian President Gustavo Petro and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, as well as representatives of the United States and the King of Spain, are expected to attend his inauguration.
"The Guatemalan people and the international community are watching," Arévalo said in his message on X.
A meeting of foreign ministers attending the inauguration was urgently convened by Costa Rica.
The son of reformer Juan José Arévalo, Guatemala's first democratically elected president in 1945 after decades of dictatorship, Bernardo Arévalo, 65, has repeatedly denounced a "slow coup" to prevent the ballot box from being respected.
He succeeds right-wing incumbent President Alejandro Giammattei, who has been singled out for his support of Attorney General Consuelo Porras, and under whose tenure several prosecutors fighting corruption, which is deeply rooted in the government and institutions, have been arrested or forced into exile.
With AFP
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