Bernardo Arévalo accuses prosecutor Consuelo Porras of being behind an attempted coup d’état to prevent him from assuming the presidency on January 14.
Guatemala’s president-elect, Bernardo Arévalo, said he plans to meet with the Attorney General and head of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, María Consuelo Porras, to ask her to resign from office, as he accuses her of forging an attempt to “coup d’état” to prevent him from assuming the presidency.
“I hope that Consuelo Porras will resign on the day I take office and I will reiterate it to him,” Arévalo said recently, in statements published by Prensa Libre, when questioned about how he saw the scenario of governing with the prosecutor still in charge.
The Constitutional Court was clear and already on January 14, we will begin to take action, we will meet with the attorney general to ask for her resignation,” said Arévalo, according to Prensa Libre.
The meeting with the prosecutor will be requested as soon as possible, said the president-elect’s communication team. It was not confirmed whether the meeting will be requested prior to the takeover.
As president-elect, Arévalo experienced the most controversial transition process in Guatemala’s history, since since July 12, 2023 the Prosecutor’s Office has tried in various ways to annul his victory and even initiated criminal proceedings to try to avoid his assumption.
Arévalo de León warned on September 1 that Attorney General Porras was carrying out a “coup d’état” against her.
In an interview with EFE this week, the Guatemalan president-elect said that the promoters of the “coup d’état” against him are “desperate” a few days after his inauguration.
The 65-year-old academic comes to power with an anti-corruption speech to replace the current president, Alejandro Giammattei, who has one of the lowest approval levels on the continent, according to various polls.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker T.rk, expressed alarm days ago about the situation in Guatemala and called for an end to acts of intimidation, prosecution and persecution of those fighting corruption.
He noted that there has been an increase in the criminalization of justice operators in Guatemala over the past 12 months, which clearly runs counter to the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law in the country.
This article has been translated from the original which first appeared in El Salvador