Two days after prosecutors announced they would seek to lift Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales’ immunity, he ordered the expulsion of the head of a highly praised UN anti-corruption commission and plunged into a face-off with the nation’s top court and the international community.
It was a stunning reversal for a president whose predecessor had been forced to resign by the same body’s investigation two years earlier and who campaigned as the panel’s biggest advocate.
“Neither corrupt nor a crook” was Morales’ campaign slogan.
What happened between the television comedian taking office in January last year and the constitutional crisis he provoked on Sunday was that the UN commission and the aggressive Guatemalan prosecutors it has helped train over the past decade turned their sights on him and allegations of illegal campaign financing.
Morales has strenuously denied any wrongdoing and rumors swirled last week that Morales’ visit to UN headquarters in New York was to get rid of the commission’s head, Ivan Velasquez.
By Friday afternoon, Velasquez stood beside chief prosecutor Thelma Aldana to announce that they were asking a court to start the process for removing Morales’ immunity from prosecution, a move that would eventually need the support of congress.
“It’s based on his own personal interest,” Jo-Marie Burt, a senior fellow with the Washington Office on Latin America and a professor in the school of public policy and government at George Mason University, said of Morales’ decision to oust Velasquez.
That order quickly ran into Guatemala’s Constitutional Court, which temporarily suspended the expulsion while it studies the case, based on arguments that Morales had a fundamental conflict of interest. At least one Cabinet minister resigned in protest and the Guatemalan minister of foreign affairs was fired for refusing to expel Velasquez, people gathered in the capital in several spots to demonstrate against the decree, and the US, EU and others expressed deep concern about the president’s action.
Not only are prosecutors investigating the campaign financing of the party led by the Morales, but his brother and son have been ordered to stand trial for an alleged tax fraud scheme.
Morales remained defiant, issuing another statement later on Sunday saying he stood by his original order in spite of what the court ruled.
“He’s pushing the country into a constitutional crisis,” Burt said.
The chief prosecutor had said previously that she would resign if Velasquez was removed, so Morales may have been hoping that he could get rid of the two leaders of the country’s anti-graft efforts.
However, once the court stepped in, Aldana said she was staying as chief prosecutor, dissent appeared within the president’s administration and protesters took to the streets.
Working together, local prosecutors and the UN panel have won popularity over the last decade by beginning to hack away at corruption long endemic in Guatemala, including forcing Otto Perez Molina from the presidency in 2015.
“An attack upon them is an attack upon everyone in Guatemala who is fighting for a better country,” University of Scranton political science professor Mike Allison said.
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