Latin America’s corruption scandals can be hard to keep track of. In the past two years alone, current and former presidents in countries like Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and Peru have been been the targets of high-profile fraud allegations.
The latest Latin American leader to grab headlines is Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, a former comedian and anti-corruption crusader who has led the country since 2016. In August, a United Nations-backed anti-corruption commision requested a formal investigation into Morales over more than $800,000 in allegedly unexplained campaign funds. Days later, Morales moved to expel the head of the commission, Ivan Velasquez. But the act, criticized by the U.S., United Nations and others, was quickly blocked by Guatemala’s Constitutional Court. Initially Morales was defiant, hinting that he would ignore the court’s veto, though he eventually said he would abide by it.
On Monday, Guatemala’s Supreme Court ruled that a request to remove Morales’ immunity from prosecution should go before Congress for final consideration. If an investigation is allowed to proceed, and Morales is found guilty, he may be Latin America’s newest face of corruption.
Guatemala’s latest crisis may seem like another iteration of the same old regional story, but it has its own variations. Here are answers to five questions that are key to understanding the tense and evolving political situation:
1. Who is Jimmy Morales?
When Morales ran for president in 2015, his campaign slogan was “not corrupt, nor a thief.” At the time he was one of Guatemala’s most famous television comedians, known for his role in a weekly sketch show, where his antics included dressing as a country bumpkin and occasionally in blackface. A political outsider, he campaigned on an anti-corruption platform after former Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina resigned in the face of a bribery scandal. The strategy led to a landslide victory, with Morales winning more than 72 percent of the vote.
While campaigning, Morales presented himself as a centrist. But some human rights defenders worry that his party, the right-wing National Convergence Front, has troubling ties to former military leaders during the country’s brutal 30-year civil war — a charge Morales denies.
Shortly after becoming president, Morales extended the mandate of the U.N.-backed commission, known as the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, through 2019.
But the commission drew the president’s ire in September 2016 when it kicked off a separate graft probe focused on his elder brother and one of his sons, who were formally charged in January and are now on trial for tax fraud
“That put an end to any kind of honeymoon between Morales and Ivan,” says Eric Olson, deputy director of the Latin American Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center. “He was upset and angry and things have gotten worse.”
2. What is the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala?
The International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, known as the CICIG, was formed in 2007 as a way to investigate criminal groups undermining Guatemala’s democratic gains since the end of the country’s civil war in the 1990s.
At the time the CICIG was forming, “There was an increasing awareness of the Guatemalan clandestine security apparatus — the way that some of the dark forces that existed in the civil war had morphed into organized criminal groups,” says Michael Camilleri, director of the Rule of Law Program at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank focused on the Americas. “These groups had become far too powerful for the weak Guatemalan justice system to combat.”
The CICIG, a one-of-a-kind hybrid body where international researchers assist national prosecutors in their work to dismantle criminal structures, has led successful corruption investigations into the government, business, and organized crime sectors — even catching former President Molina in its net.
But despite its legal wins, the commission faces criticism from those who view it as an instrument of foreign meddling. Every two years, the group’s mandate must be renewed.
3. Has Guatemala been here before?
Kind of. In 2015, the CICIG was involved in an investigation that led to the arrest of almost 200 officials for corruption, including a “multimillion dollar scheme to defraud customs,” according to the International Crisis Group. The evidence trail, which included more than 60,000 wiretapped phone calls and thousands of emails, led to then-President Molina, who denied the charges and resigned. He’s now in detention and facing judicial proceedings.
Through the investigation, “the CICIG and the attorney general became national heroes,” Olson says. “Finally, someone held a sitting president accountable.”
The CICIG had clearly gotten under Molina’s skin prior to his resignation. He had threatened to revoke the commission’s mandate — though he never did — and argued that it was a tool to undermine Guatemala’s sovereignty. In many ways, Olson says, Molina and Morales share the same conspiracy theories.
“The argument is Ivan [Velasquez] has a leftist political agenda to destroy Guatemala and install a Chavez-like government,” he says. “They argue that Velasquez and the U.N. are trying to take over the country, but what they obviously overlook is that Guatemala agreed to this. The U.N. didn’t invade Guatemala and set up the CICIG. It was done with the acceptance of the Guatemalan state.”
4. What happens next?
The final step to strip Morales of immunity requires a vote by two-thirds of Congress. But experts say it’s unclear which way the legislature will lean. While the bulk of Guatemalans have likely turned against the president, his party could still manage an alliance which could give him protection, says Mark L. Schneider, senior adviser to the Americas Program and the Human Rights Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“If he manages to get backing in Congress, I suspect that would trigger wide-scale protests,” Schneider says. “He then becomes a president in a very weakened situation.”
If Congress strips immunity and allows the investigation to proceed, Morales’ fate will depend on the findings.
“If ultimately the source of these funds they haven’t been able to account for is something illicit, that is very serious,” says Camilleri with the Inter-American Dialogue. “It’s hard to imagine how someone could continue to govern a country in that situation. It would certainly be very crippling.”
5. How concerning is Guatemala’s political situation?
While last week Guatemala seemed to be peering over the abyss, the country has steadied itself in recent days, Olson says.
That said, he and other experts agree that calling the situation a “crisis” isn’t going too far.
“You have a president who twice in a week showed a willingness to put his own personal interests above the rule of law, both in his initial attempt to expel Velasquez and his questionable acceptance of the Constitutional Court decision,” Camilleri says. “Any time you have a president trying to put himself above the rule of law, that is very serious.”
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What to Know About the Crisis in Guatemala originally appeared on usnews.com
