Guatemalan authorities are seeking to revoke Bernardo Arévalo’s immunity from criminal prosecution, putting the president-elect at risk of arrest as he prepares to take office in January.
Prosecutor Angel Saul Sanchez alleged Thursday that Arévalo — an anti-corruption crusader — had knowledge of a violent takeover of Guatemala’s University of San Carlos, and that his political party Semilla used campus buildings to plan its 2023 presidential campaign.
Groups of students and professors invaded the campus in 2022 and 2023, causing $11 million in property damage, Sanchez told reporters. The prosecutor said the vice-president-elect, Karin Herrera, was on site when a car was burned and that Arévalo, a congressman, was present while illegal groups were running the university.
“These people used their public office to take over the university in an illicit manner,” Sanchez said, adding that prosecutors will also seek to revoke Herrera’s immunity from prosecution.
The request will be sent the courts. If they approve the request, it will be sent to congress where legislators must form a committee to investigate the charges. The legislature would then hold a vote on whether or not to revoke Arévalo’s immunity. If it is revoked, he could be arrested to face charges.
Sanchez said prosecutors have obtained arrest warrants for 27 people so far in this case, and that police raided homes on Thursday morning searching for evidence.
Arévalo’s allies immediately criticized the move. The case is “completely made up, with the goal of intimidating” the party and scaring street demonstrators who have protested probes of Semilla, congressman Samuel Perez said in response to questions. A former Semilla congressional candidate, who had criticized government corruption, was among those arrested, Perez said.
A day earlier, congress elected new judges for the country’s courts and began proceedings to revoke immunity from electoral authority magistrates who certified Arévalo as president-elect in August. Protesters who allege the new judges are corrupt clashed with police outside congress Wednesday night. Officers in riot gear formed a perimeter around the legislature Thursday.
The Biden administration is monitoring developments closely, warning against any attempt to prevent prevent Arévalo from taking office.
Such “destabilizing actions pose a threat not only to the Guatemalan people but to regional peace and security,” Brian Nichols, the assistant US secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, said Wednesday on X, formerly known as Twitter.
(Updates with more details and context beginning in 4th paragraph.)
