Guatemala’s narco-kleptocracy has perfected a closed electoral system that rewards and empowers corrupt candidates and parties, argues celebrated novelist Francisco Goldman. Under Presidents Giammattei and Morales, Attorney General María Consuelo Porras, considered a “corrupt and anti-democratic actor” by the United States, has blocked corruption investigations and weaponized the justice system against judicial officers, he writes for The New York Times:
The situation wasn’t always so dire. Until recently Guatemala’s justice system stood as a beacon of hope in a region awash in authoritarian rule and state corruption. Beginning in 2006, the United Nations-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, known as CICIG, which received most of its funding from the United States and had full bipartisan support, exposed crime groups embedded in government and brought charges against nearly 700 people, including the former president Otto Pérez Molina. RTWT
