2023-10-14 02:21:05
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei asked indigenous leaders in a message to the nation on Friday to end the road closures they maintain during 12 days of protest and said he cannot attend to the main demand that the attorney general, Consuelo Porras, resign, because she would be violating the law.
For 12 days, thousands of indigenous people accompanied by various sectors of Guatemalan society, in the country’s 22 departments, have blocked roads and called protests to demand the resignation of Porras, whom they accuse of trying to ignore the result of the last elections due to his judicial attack. once morest the electoral authorities and the elected president, Bernardo Arévalo.
On Friday, police opened roads in several places using tear gas to disperse protesters. Even so, at least 70 points of roads throughout the country remain blocked.
The protesters accuse Porras of leading the judicialization of the electoral process with the intention of preventing the elected president Bernardo Arévalo from taking office in January and consider that this disrespects the popular will expressed at the polls, thus undermining the country’s democracy.
The prosecutor has not been seen publicly for several weeks. On Monday, in a recorded video, Porras rejected the demonstrations and asked the police to act once morest the protests. His general secretary Ángel Pineda is the one who signs the recent communications from the investigative entity on behalf of the Public Ministry.
Prosecutors under the command of Porras have raided electoral headquarters, reviewed votes and seized electoral records that recorded how Arévalo went to the second round of elections and then won the runoff once morest former first lady Sandra Torres.
In his message on Friday, the president said that the law prohibits him from losing the resignation of the head of the Prosecutor’s Office, since he would be “committing the crime of abuse of authority.”
“I am clear regarding one thing, the President of the Republic cannot directly remove the Attorney General and Head of the Public Ministry… This means that the current regulatory framework makes it impossible for the President of the Republic to comply in that sense,” he stressed. Giammattei. “This one,” he insisted, “does not have the direct powers to proceed with the removal.”
A day before, the president met with indigenous authorities, under the mediation of a mission from the Organization of American States (OAS), and told them that he might not request Porras’ resignation. The community representatives warned that they will not give up on their mobilizations until his request is met.
The president also asked that a water plant that supplies service to the capital be released, since the supply to hospitals and others is put at risk, before a judge issues a court order for the police to forcibly evict them.
The OAS mission said that they have held meetings with various sectors in order to “provide specific recommendations that allow the Government of Guatemala to adopt urgent political decisions that lead to the effective solution of the issues that are the subject of the social protest that is currently taking place.” in the country,” the entity said in a statement.
“The opening of this dialogue between ancestral authorities and representatives of the National Government is a historic advance, since it places the people and authorities of the indigenous communities legitimately represented at a table of direct dialogue,” stressed the OAS mission, which rejected any act that threatens the electoral process, its results and the transition of powers.
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