Washington, Dec 8 (EFE).- The General Secretariat of the Organization of American States on Friday condemned “the attempted coup d’état by the Public Ministry of Guatemala” for the attempt by prosecutors Rafael Curruchiche and Leonor Morales to annul the country’s general elections.
In a communiqué, the office of the organization’s general secretary, Luis Almagro, called on President Alejandro Giammattei, the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court and Congress to act against the “perpetrators of this attempt” in order to “defend the institutions and the constitutional order.”
According to the General Secretariat, “the attempt to annul” the victory of Bernardo Arévalo “constitutes the worst form of democratic rupture and the consolidation of a political fraud against the will of the people.”
The statement by the OAS comes in response to the Guatemalan Attorney General’s Office’s decision to invalidate this year’s general elections because of alleged istrative irregularities by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.
The Prosecutor´s office also opened a new case against Arévalo related to the creation and financing of the Seed Movement party and requested that he be stripped of immunity.
Since his surprise victory in the first round of Guatemala’s presidential election on June 25, the Attorney General’s Office, headed by Consuelo Porras, has made increasingly overt attempts to overturn the verdict of the ballot boxes.
In October, the US State Department imposed visa restrictions on 12 unnamed Guatemalan officials for their “continued efforts to undermine Guatemala’s peaceful transition to President-elect Arévalo.”
Both the head of the Public Ministry, Porras, and the special prosecutor against impunity, Curruchiche, had been sanctioned months earlier for undermining democracy and engaging in corruption. EFE
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