The Supreme Court of Justice has agreed to uphold the request filed by the Public Ministry and the CICIG against the president, and now deputies must launch an investigation.
The political crisis affecting the country has been accentuated in the last few hours with a decision by the Supreme Court of Justice to send to Congress the file requesting a preliminary hearing.
Four petitions for pre trial hearings have already been lodged against President Morales, following his request to expel the leader of the International Commission against Impunity from Guatemala.
EDITORIAL
In less than a week a series of events took place which have left the country on tenterhooks.The Public Ministry and the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (Cicig) filed a petition for a pre trial hearing against President Morales for alleged illicit electoral financing; Morales declared the Commission of the Cicig, Iván Velásquez, persona non grata, and requested his expulsion from the country. In response to this, three other requests for preliminary hearings have been filed in the last few hours.
With the resignation of Pérez Molina and Alejandro Maldonado sworn in as president, the institutional crisis should moderate in its intensity.
From a statement by AmCham Guatemala:
After several months of political uncertainty in Guatemala it has been demonstrated that nobody is above the law and that the country's institutions are able to perform their job.
With 132 votes in favor, the Congress decided to remove the president's immunity, who will have to face the accusations of corruption.
While the president insists on staying in office, the commission appointed to examine the arguments in President Perez Molina's defense and evidence presented by the prosecution decided unanimously to recommend to Congress to waive his immunity so that he faces judgement.
The appointment as Minister of Economy and Competitiveness Commissioner of people linked to the telecommunications sector has created strong suspicions, and comes at a time when a $250 million deal is on the table.
An article in Plazapublica.com.gt reports that "... the appointment of Ricardo Sagastume and Acisclo Valladares Urruela as Minister of Economy and Presidential Commissioner for Competitiveness, respectively, in a government that is drowning under the weight of allegations of corruption, has generated doubts and suspicions. When everyone else is leaving the ship, they are getting ready to get onboard. With a lack of coherent explanations from the Presidency and the new officials themselves, everything points to Tigo, the telephone company from which both of them come from, and a multi million dollar business deal in its favor as a result of the troubled waters in which the country finds itself. "
The Coordinating Committee of Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial and Financial Associations is asking him to leave office and be accountable, preventing unnecessary institutional expense for the country.
From a statement issued by the CACIF:
The undersigned organizations, members GUATEMALA FORUM, wish to express to Otto Perez Molina :
4. Guatemalan society has expressed peacefully and orderly its demands for your resignation as President of the Republic. So have various social bodies. As the person constitutionally responsible for national unity, recognize that this united nation is today asking for your retirement from office.
The current political turmoil is threatening the implementation of important infrastructure projects such as the construction of the State Administrative Center, valued at $200 million.
The resignation of several ministers in Perez Molina's cabinet, including Sergio de la Torre, Economy Minister and Commissioner for competitiveness, Juan Carlos Paiz, both members of the board of the National Agency for the Development Partnerships Economic infrastructure (ANADIE) complicates the near future of planned projects to be developed in the form of public - private partnerships.
The Otto Perez Molina administration appears to be disintegrating in time with the successive dismantling of networks of entrenched corruption at the highest level, jeopardizing the country's basic institutions.
EDITORIAL
There are very few occasions when political parties with different ideologies and civil groups with dissimilar origins in Latin America have teamed up to denounce the same cause, as is currently happening in Guatemala.
Growing institutional weakness in several countries of the isthmus brings to the forefront the responsibility of the business sector to keep the economy of this region moving forward.
EDITORIAL
Currently, the governments of several Central American countries are showing signs of weaknesses which - to different degrees- point to a sharp decline in institutional quality.
The dismantling of a network of corruption at the highest level in the Superintendency of Tax Administration has forced an analysis of the stability of the government of Otto Perez Molina.
Calderon raises three possible scenarios:
"...First scenario: precarious balance, which means continuing the current pace of deterioration in the political system and levels of governance, and at the same time assuming an increased fragmentation of the government bloc.