The chat that sparked spirits in Guatemala

The leak of a private conversation in a chat in which the entire cabinet is present revealed the terrible relationship between President Alejandro Giammattei and Vice President Guillermo Castillo, who asked the president to step down and sparked serious protests in the country.

In 2015, Guatemalans took to the streets of the country to demand the resignation of then-president Otto Pérez Molina. The International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) uncovered what would be the biggest political scandal since the return to democracy in 1985: Molina and her vice president, Roxana Baldetti, were implicated in a customs fraud case. Both have been released from their posts and are awaiting trial.

See more: The indigenous people of Guatemala block the streets and insist on the resignation of the president

Five years later, the boredom continues. But this time the political crisis has reached the point that it was the vice president of Guatemala, Guillermo Castillo Reyes, who asked the president, Alejandro Giammattei, to both resign “for the good of the country”. The request provoked a campaign in Guatemala, with protests and requests from citizens, for Giammattei to leave the presidency.

The tensions within the executive are not new. In September, the press leaked a chat conversation in which they called a cabinet meeting to define whether or not the state of calamity in Guatemala due to COVID-19 will continue. The vice president replied that he would not attend that meeting.

“We have several weeks without holding cabinet meetings. They also took the signatures of the Cabinet without a formal meeting as required by the Constitution. Enough is enough,” the vice president stressed, according to local media. The newspaper.

“We could have held that meeting well in advance if you had decided to delegate the summons to the Council of Ministers to me and not stop it selfishly just thinking about the exercise of power that has fallen over you, especially now that, as indicated, you are affected from COVID infection. -19 ”, Castillo added in conversations directed to Giammattei.

See more: The vase of Llorente in Guatemala

After the leak, Giammattei said that the vice president, for four weeks, “did not turn to any ministry to see what we were doing or how we would deal with the state of Calamity,” he said in an interview with Emisoras Unidas. “There are people who don’t understand their functions. The call was made in accordance with the law (…) The chat will be reported for a national security leak to the Public Ministry because someone leaked it, “he added.

Who is the vice president who asked Giammattei to resign?

It was rare to see Castillo Reyes at election rallies with the current president. He always seemed distant from public opinion and his name was little known in the international press. Even, for some, Guillermo Castillo is, in many ways, the antithesis of the president. “He is friendly and willing to talk to the media; the president is short-tempered and intolerant of questions. Castillo has a master’s degree in human rights and Giammattei has been accused of murdering inmates and fugitives. What do they have in common? “ Nomadic, a local medium.

The answer is simple: Castillo was the perfect bridge that Giammattei needed to get closer to the large business community of the country. For four years (2004-2009), the current vice president was general manager of the Technical Institute for Training and Productivity (Intecap). He was also Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Security from January 2004 to May 2005 and in 2014 he was Executive Director of the Guatemalan Chamber of Commerce.

See more: Two hurricanes, political and social crisis and finally the coronavirus in Guatemala

It was until 2018 that Castillo launched into politics, and with the party Here we go came to the vice presidency of Guatemala. However, in 2007, he supported the Patriot Party (PP) when the famous businessman Ricardo Castillo Sinibaldi was the candidate for vice president. In fact, their support was thought to go far beyond participating in electoral demonstrations. When asked if during his tenure at Intecap the institute’s resources had been used for PP’s campaign, Castillo said Nomadic that this was impossible because it is the Board of Directors that approves the expenses that are made in that institution, and added that it is money coming from private entities and not from the state.

The distances her with Giammattei

“If decisions that affect the interests of the population are to be made, I will separate myself from approving those decisions and make public my arguments as to why I disagree,” the vice president told the Guatemalan media themselves during the campaign. electoral. So it was. Not only did he ask Giammattei to resign, but he also opposed the visit of the Organization of American States (OAS), called by the president, with which they intend to gather information on the political crisis in which the country is involved.

This is after dozens of Guatemalans burned down some congressional offices in the midst of demonstrations called by citizens to refuse approval of the controversial budget 2021. “I described the decision to invoke the Inter-American Democratic Charter of the OAS as hasty. The special envoy has requested an audience. I refuse my participation. I recommend that you meet with different sectors of Guatemalan society who will surely have a lot to comment on, ”Castillo said on his social networks.

In fact, dozens of social organizations such as the International Commission of Jurists and Impunity Watch, have denounced that in Guatemala, contrary to what Giammattei said, “there is a situation of violence on the part of the state”.

An eternal crisis

“Together we promised to take the reins as requested by the population; however, it was not as expected, “Castillo Reyes said after Congress, made up mostly of the ruling party and related parties, approved the largest budget in Guatemala’s history at nearly $ 13 billion. budget that will remain we will see the items of health, education and those destined to fight poverty in a country where about 17 million people live in poverty; we are talking about almost 60% of the population.

The social discontent was such that the opposition legislative bloc demanded that he resign from the board of parliament. Thousands of indigenous Maya have also blocked at least six major stretches of highways in western Guatemala. This is despite the fact that Congress canceled the controversial budget after the social outbreak.

See more: The 18 minutes that set fire to the Guatemalan Congress

All this in a country hit by two hurricanes in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Eta and Iota left about 60 dead, dozens of disappearances and the destruction of crops to support thousands of Guatemalan families. According to United Nations data, there are more than 17,300 people housed in 132 shelters in Guatemala.

Against the backdrop of the current social and political crisis affecting the country, there is a history of corruption that has suspected the legitimacy of the institutions in Guatemala. Otto Pérez Molina, now in preventive prison, is not the only former president who has been heavily questioned. According to Transparency International, Guatemala lost 10 places and fell to its all-time high in the corruption perception index during the administration of former president Jimmy Morales Cabrera, successor of Pérez Molina.

Morales has decided to put an end to the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), despite the fact that, thanks to their work, Molina and Baldetti are held accountable before justice. In fact, in 2010 Giammattei spent several months in prison on trial for the extrajudicial execution of seven inmates while the current president was in charge of directing the prison system between 2005 and 2007; finding by the CICIG and the Public Prosecutor. In 2011, the investigation was closed as insufficient evidence was found.