U.S. Institute of Peace experts discuss the latest foreign policy issues from around the world in On Peace, a brief weekly collaboration with SiriusXM's POTUS Channel 124.

Transcript

Laura Coates: Joining us now is Dr. Mary Speck a senior expert for the Latin America program for the United States Institute of Peace. She previously served as the Executive Director of the Western hemispheric Drug Policy Commission, an independent bipartisan entity created by Congress to evaluate counter narcotics policies in the Americas and provide practical recommendations on how to both reduce the availability of illicit drugs and minimize the damage associated with drug trafficking. She is now a senior expert with Latin American program for the Institute of Peace and joins us now. Dr. Mary Speck, welcome. Good morning. How are you?

Mary Speck: Good morning. Very good, thank you. Thank you for having me.

Laura Coates: I'm very glad you're here. I've been seeing in the headlines in the news a lot about what's going on in Guatemala for their upcoming presidential election. Obviously, all eyes here in the states have been on what's happening with our upcoming 2024. But why is this so significant? And why is this one to watch?

Mary Speck: Well, Guatemala, of course, is a major source of irregular migration to the United States, but also it what happens in Guatemala can affect the whole region. There's been a lot of democratic backsliding, attacks on the Judiciary, attacks on the press. In all three countries, frankly, of northern Central America, Guatemala is the biggest with the biggest population, biggest economy; what happens there matters to the region and problems in Guatemala, instability in Guatemala will tend to land at the US border.

Laura Coates: So why has there been such instability in terms of the electoral process?

Mary Speck: Well, Guatemala has been roiled in recent years by a number of anti-corruption investigations. A few years ago, it had an unprecedented U.N. commission that investigated corruption at the highest levels, including arresting a former president and vice president. And then that commission went too far for some Guatemalan leaders, and it was kicked out. But corruption remains a highly controversial issue there. Now in these recent elections, in an apparent attempt to favor the governing candidate, a number of other candidates were barred from participating. Nonetheless, in the end an anti-corruption candidate managed to make it to the second round and then since then, there have been a number of attempts to boot his party out of the contest, but as it stands, he's still running and will compete in the August 20 final round.

Laura Coates: Do we have a sense of what the ideologies of each of the competing candidates are? Are we dealing with two extremes here or are we dealing with nuances between two similar candidates?

Mary Speck: They're actually quite similar in at least in origin, both of them claim to be social democratic. The other candidate the anticorruption, Bernardo Arévalo, who was a surprise winner of the second round of the first round. Has made a name for himself as an anti-corruption leader, that's what his party emerged from the protests against corruption in 2015, but he was considered a very unlikely to make it to the second round. Sandra Torres has made it to the second round a number of times she is very much a centrist, both of them are from center left. Her support is in the countryside, but to her campaign or her candidates has been tainted by corruption allegations in the past. So, one, the main difference between the two is that one wants to put it under Arévalo wants to put the anti-corruption act front and center, where as Sandra Torres is more conventional social democrat and seen as much more clientelistic type candidate.

Laura Coates: Now, why other concerns now? I mean, obviously, you've laid out a great deal of things there, but will there's a headline I know that you've written as well about will voters or the courts choose Guatemala's next president? Is that in question at this time?

Mary Speck: Well, first throughout the campaign, the courts have intervened or the Supreme Electoral Council and the public prosecutor's office have initiated investigations or simply booted candidates off the ballot, disqualified candidates, beginning with an a leftist candidate, an indigenous candidate, but then also booting several conservative candidates for relatively minor violations of rules such as starting a campaign early, which normally would just be punished with fees or something like that. So, they tried to interfere from the beginning, there's been a great deal of interference in the electoral process and that's probably, ultimately why Arévalo was able to make it into the final round. There was a field of nearly 20 candidates, but they'd eliminated some of the front runners. And so, surprise, surprise, the candidate probably least wanted to make sure the final round made it, then immediately after he made it, they started investigating his campaign and ordered a partial recount. So there have been a number of there's been a lot of fear that he would, that they would find some excuse to kick Arévalo out in order so that the governing the governance, the governor, the governing, the ruling party's candidate could actually make it to the final round. But it appears that those efforts have failed, and that he will get to the final round.

Laura Coates: How is the how the Guatemalan citizens and people been reacting to this? I mean, they were seeing obviously places like Israel and the conversations around digital interference or the democracy being questioned or undermined. Has there been protests or similar aspects in Guatemala?

Mary Speck: Well, yeah, interestingly, there have been protests on the streets, you even and they've been really widespread. There's been condemnation, by the leading business associations, which tend to be quite conservative. Indigenous authorities have protested and there is something called the march of the flowers, where the indigenous leaders came to the capitol and demanded that the electoral process be respected. But especially a number of demonstrations led mainly by young people in both the capital and in the departmental capitals, asking demanding that the electoral results be respected.

Laura Coates: Is this having an impact? I mean, regionally as well, obviously, United States is tuning in and wanting to understand the process. But are there other countries surrounding Guatemala as well that are having a vested interest? Are they able to have any impact on any of us?

Mary Speck: Well, the OAS has sent an electoral mission, and which confirmed that the first-round results were valid. And no, no evidence of fraud in during the first round and their mission returned out of concern that the second-round campaign would not be allowed to proceed. So, the OAS has taken a strong stand, the EU has taken a stand, Guatemala's immediate neighbors, not so much, because actually, democracy is somewhat fragile in both in the other countries of northern Central America, Honduras and El Salvador. So, they've been more or less quiet, but the region as a whole is represented by the OAS has taken the stand in favor of to support the electorate the electoral process.

Laura Coates: What are you looking for? When is the actual election and what are you looking for in terms of next steps to gauge whether or not democracy truly will prevail here?

Mary Speck: Well, the next, the final round is on August 20 and there are there will be observer missions to make sure that the election day proceeds fairly, and people are allowed to vote. I mean, any election, usually the electoral process in Guatemala is fairly, fairly free and fair. The issue here though, is that the prosecutors have done things such as ask for the names of vote counters, and in an evident attempt to intimidate them. So, there's a fear that there won't be sufficient volunteers, people will be afraid to man the voting stations. There's also a fear that after these investigations against Bernardo Arévalo's party will continue after the first round, because there's a very long lame duck period in Guatemala between the new president and taking office, until early January. So, they could continue to investigate in an attempt to somehow disqualify him or during this long lame duck period. So, it's even after August 20, the concerns are still there.

Laura Coates: This is really interesting to hear your perspective and get a preview of all the things you should be considering as well in this important conversation. Mary Speck, thank you for joining us today. I appreciate it so much.

Mary Speck: Thank you.