Guatemala, once Latin America’s rule-of-law beacon, has new hope

A DECADE AGO, the Mariscal Zavala prison in Guatemala City was a symbol of Latin America’s fight against corruption. Dozens of politicians and businessmen, caught taking bribes or laundering cash, awaited trial in austere cells guarded by baby-faced soldiers. The most notorious inmate was Otto Pérez Molina, Guatemala’s president until 2015, when a UN-backed anti-corruption commission revealed his role as the mastermind of a massive kickback scheme. Protests forced him out of office and into the justice system, which for the first time was showing an independent streak.

Guatemalans idolised the commission, known as CICIG, along with the judges and prosecutors who dared to put powerful people behind bars. Guatemala became the poster-child for the rule of law in a region known for impunity. But progress was short-lived. Mr Molina’s successor, Jimmy Morales—who was also accused of corruption—kicked the UN commission out of the country in 2019. He appointed a new attorney-general, María Consuelo Porras (pictured), who proceeded to dismantle many of CICIG’s cases. Ms Porras has since continued to assail prosecutors, judges, civil society leaders and journalists who had led the fight against graft. Some were imprisoned, others forced into exile.

Some saw Ms Porras as a necessary corrective to CICIG’s overreach. Even the commission’s fans admit that it made errors: filing more cases than it could process and flaunting them in the media; prosecuting a president, Mr Morales, whose support was needed for crucial judicial reforms. But others were horrified as legal instruments created to fight against corruption were turned against it: a budget that became larger than that of most ministries; an “anti-impunity” task force that began persecuting its former members; a law, passed in 2016 to protect Ms Porras’ predecessor, that made it practically impossible for the president to get rid of the attorney-general. In 2022 the United States put Ms Porras under sanctions for corruption. Her spokesperson calls accusations of political persecution “totally false”.

Today Mariscal Zavala is half empty. Among its remaining inmates are Luis Pacheco and Héctor Chaclán, indigenous Guatemalans who led protests in 2023 against Ms Porras’s extraordinary efforts to prevent Bernardo Arévalo, the winner of the presidential election, from taking office. Mr Arévalo, the leader of a center-left party, Semilla, ran on an anti-corruption platform. Ms Porras and her allies raided polling stations, accused him of fraudulent voter registration, and tried to pressure the electoral court into annulling his victory. Mr Arévalo took office, but Ms Porras, who remained in her powerful post, charged the protest leaders with sedition, unlawful association, and terrorism. Their case, which is sealed, is yet to appear before a judge.

Now her term is over; her efforts to cling on failed. A new attorney-general, Gabriel García Luna, will take office on May 17th. He is more independent by all accounts. But relief at Ms Porras’s departure is mixed with trepidation. Her allies remain entrenched in the justice system, while her eight-year reign laid bare the depth of the rot in Guatemala.

Mr García Luna’s appointment is Mr Arévalo’s long-awaited chance to move the country on. It follows tense battles earlier this year for control of Guatemala’s top courts, which ended up split between respected jurists and figures denounced for their ties to organised crime and corruption. One reform-minded member of the Constitutional Court had to be sworn in before dawn because prosecutors were threatening her with an arrest order.

The president has avoided confrontation with Ms Porras, insisting instead on obeying the law that empowered her–and every other law. This drew criticism from his allies. “Diplomacy is for developed countries,” says Mr Chaclán, the indigenous leader. “You have to use the instruments of power, and he decided not to,” says Samuel Pérez, a congressman who left the president’s party in 2025.

The new attorney-general has had a mostly quiet career as a judge and law-school professor. In his testimony to the nominating commission, he spoke about restoring public confidence in the attorney-general’s office and “avoiding arbitrary decisions and groundless persecutions”. Some want him to go after the powerful actors Ms Porras protected; it seems more likely he will start with less divisive tasks, like strengthening prosecutors’ response to organised crime, extortion, and violence against women. The quip going around Guatemala is that he is Mr Arévalo in the form of an attorney-general.

Many doubt he will have the backbone for high-profile corruption cases or controversial reforms, such as a new system for choosing high-court judges. Anti-corruption work is getting harder, in part because its advocates can no longer count on support from the United States. Previous administrations in Washington viewed democracy and the rule of law as key to combatting drug-trafficking and illegal migration in Latin America. Donald Trump takes a more brute-force approach, and cares little for such high-minded diagnoses.

Anti-corruption advocates now hope that an ally of Mr Arévalo’s will win the next presidential election in 2027. That could create a stronger mandate for reforms. But they worry that Guatemalans will follow the lead of their Central American neighbors and vote in a populist authoritarian. To forestall this, José Carlos Sanabria, a lawmaker from the president’s party, says Mr Arévalo should make everyday needs his priority: healthcare, security, roads, education. “It’s not enough that he’s not corrupt,” Mr Sanabria says. “We have to give the population concrete reasons to say that it was worth it.” ■