Guatemala’s Democracy Dilemma
J ust over three years ago in Guatemala, a coalition of young and Indigenous voters helped propel Bernardo Arévalo, a reformer who campaigned against corruption, to an astounding presidential win.
Guatemala had not only refused the global trend toward populist authoritarianism; it had also defied what its citizens called “the pact of the corrupt,” a loose alliance of politicians, judges, criminal networks, and crony capitalists that had gained control of the country’s institutions.
Today the mood in Guatemala is less hopeful.
Some of Arévalo’s former allies, and many of those who voted for him, are dejected, convinced that the president missed a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the country.
When I met with Arévalo in Guatemala City in May, he defended the pace of his administration’s progress and suggested that the alternative would have been to abuse the powers of a government he was elected to reform.
In Latin America, “we never truly got used to understanding that the rule of law is fundamental,” he told me.
“Rule of law is not the same as rule by law.
Rule of law is when we all accept that we are subject to the law and we operate within that framework to solve problems.
Rule by law is when I use the law that’s at my disposal as part of my political arsenal.” Had he crossed that line, Arévalo insisted, he would have risked being ousted by his opponents and replaced by someone willing to do much worse.
His critics disagree.
Arévalo’s personal integrity is undisputed.
But some of the reformers who helped elect him now argue that he may be too scrupulously rules-respecting to deal effectively with the “pact of the corrupt” and the institutions it captured—too much of a liberal democrat to save democracy.
When he leaves office in 2028, they fear that the pact will quickly retake control of the few institutions it has lost, or that voters will choose an autocrat who promises to crush crime without concern for legality.
Guatemala’s predicament points to a more universal problem.
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