“It saddens me that Semilla has been unable to uphold the party’s values”

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When Samuel Pérez, the highest-profile congressman from Movimiento Semilla, Guatemala’s ruling party, announced in late May an initiative to form a new party called Raíces, it became apparent that the small party that had brought Bernardo Arévalo to the presidency in 2023 has split in two: between those close to the president and those close to Pérez. Since inauguration in January 2024, Semilla’s legal incorporation has been cancelled in a lengthy saga of judicial harassment stemming from the electoral process; Pérez stated that Raíces is a bid to “refound” the former party. But eight of his fellow Semilla legislators —out of a group of two-dozen— refused to join, claiming he had made the decision without consulting them or the “party bases”.

One factor in the split is the pressure cooker of prosecution of members of the party; the U.N. Special Rapporteur for the Independence of Judges, who, in a visit to Guatemala in late May, has denounced “consistent and alarming criminalization.” Social anthropologist Irma Alicia Velásquez Nimatuj, a Maya K’iche’ professor who participated more than a decade ago in the founding of Semilla, says in this interview with El Faro English that party members “see few ways to keep Semilla going, and that led to the new formation of Raíces, but it is also part of the fragmentation that Semilla has faced, due to a lack of leadership and organic work.”

Velásquez Nimatuj, who has taught at U.S. universities such as Brown, Duke, and Stanford, sees shared responsibility on both sides of the rift: She emphasizes that what she calls a lack of involvement of Indigenous peoples has led to President Arévalo’s “political inability to assume the power given to him by the people.” This criticism contrasts with the statements of some Maya authorities who reached early agreements with the administration and express optimism for a government of profound, if slow, change.

Regarding the new group led by Pérez, she observes that his “energetic activism is surpassing that of the president,” while warning that “if he [Pérez] wants to be a caudillo, it will be a problem and his political life will be very short.” She cites one of the party’s founding intellectuals, Edelberto Torres Rivas: “Political parties in Central America have a short life. It is deeply saddening to know that his words came true for the project he put his heart and soul into.”

You were a co-founder of Semilla. Today, two years after promising a “new democratic spring,” Arévalo is caught between a rock and a hard place, between those who say his hands are tied and that he is spineless. What do you say? Arévalo arrived with popular support, but not because of himself, but because of the conditions in the country, amid a huge wave of judges and prosecutors fleeing the country. He also arrived in conditions in which the corrupt did everything to prevent him from taking office, thanks to the collective struggle of the Indigenous peoples for 106 days [who mobilized in defense of the election results]. But his huge misstep has been his political inability to assume the power given to him by the people. He has been unable to answer their main demand: the dismissal of the attorney general. It is not that there is no support, but it is no longer the strong support he once had. If he is at a crossroads, it is precisely because of this inability.

In 2023, there was a national dialogue unprecedented in decades to prevent an electoral coup. This opened up new political spaces for civil society, Indigenous authorities, and other actors. A few weeks ago, the MP cited the mobilizations when it accused two former leaders of the 48 Cantons of “terrorism.” Is this new space collapsing? No. From the Indigenous communities, with or without Bernardo, the resistance will continue because they know that this is not just about the current political moment. The fact that the two fellows are in prison accused of terrorism is nothing new: Indigenous leaders have been assassinated, massacred, imprisoned, and falsely accused. With little intelligence, the strategists of the Public Prosecutor’s Office believe that imprisonment will end the resistance. But the struggle of Indigenous peoples is not that of a political party or institution. It is a struggle that transcends, related to historical demands that persist and are worsening.

What remains today of the civic movement that was born in defense of the elections? The sectors that want a different country are not going to disappear. Now, one reason they are not participating as part of the political society is disillusionment. There are moments to retreat, not to stop acting, but to rethink. 2023 was a pivotal, key moment in which multiple factors converged. But to think that all the sectors that participated will continue in a single alliance is not humanly or politically possible, because there are different interests, class origins, race, gender, location, and political positions. But that does not mean that they have disappeared, that the movement has fallen apart.

You were part of Semilla’s founding project a decade ago. What motivated you? We started to meet in 2003, 2005, and finally in 2013. I am part of the founding group, but was not part of the group that signed the creation of Semilla as a party. I left the country in 2016, which meant I could no longer be involved on a daily basis, and my contact gradually weakened. But what made me participate were the discussions about our national reality: We imagined a process of political recomposition from the framework of neoliberalism, which had a discourse of modernizing the country, but in reality were controlling it. We thought about national stabilization to bring social justice for the majority. We also discussed the extent to which it was possible to think about a political force for the future: Bernardo’s victory is part of that. I was the only person who addressed the issue of Indigenous peoples because I was the only Indigenous person in that space.

Do you think the same ideals that inspired the founding of the party motivate its actions today? It's difficult now. It’s one thing to reflect and quite another to form a party, which is extremely difficult. Coming to power is another enormous challenge. Semilla had a historic opportunity to form a government with Indigenous peoples, with the popular sectors of the capital, with businesspeople who want a different country, with diverse women’s groups, with university and non-university youth, but they have not been able to do so. This government has decided to govern for Indigenous peoples and not with Indigenous peoples, with a paternalism that has prevented it from bringing together the best Indigenous minds. They continue with the same ideological processes; they have not changed. Bernardo used cultural policies to hand out minor posts, but that is not how you build a new country. His greatest weakness is not recognizing the political power that Indigenous peoples have. Arévalo will pass, but these peoples will not.

Arévalo calls himself a social-democrat, but some describe him as a centrist. He reached agreements with Trump and has tried to keep the business community close. Would you define Arévalo as progressive? He is a centrist. But being centrist does not mean going against social justice: It gives him the ability to negotiate. He has more opportunities to do so than someone who identifies as left-wing. In the case of Thelma Cabrera, for example, if she had won, the chances of negotiation would have been completely nil. Bernardo’s center-left position gives him more room to negotiate. However, I feel that he has not used that space to achieve the changes that the population needs.

If the president says he is cornered, why has he not decided to rely again on the thousands of people who defended the election? Do you think those same people would come out to defend him today if he called on them? He would only win the support of those who supported him in 2023 if he manages to get the attorney general dismissed. Only then.

Some describe the Arévalo administration as a transitional government, not one of radical change. If they manage to bring about changes in the Public Prosecutor’s Office through the election of the next attorney general in 2026, will they have succeeded? The only ones who described Arévalo's government as one of quote-unquote radical change were precisely the members of the Pact of the Corrupt, as part of their strategy of terror to maintain the status quo. I would not define Semilla as a transitional government, precisely because they never presented themselves as such. In reality, we are dealing with a center-right government, whose main function should be to choose the best candidate for attorney general next year: Someone who will truly ensure compliance with the rule of law. This is the least that can be expected of Arévalo. The election of the next attorney general in 2026 will be decisive, but it cannot be the only parameter for evaluating his success. If it is not presented as a transitional government, then it must be evaluated on its own terms and promises.

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What has it been like to observe the judicial persecution of Semilla? What impact has the “Semilla case” had on the party and among its supporters? When Semilla began, we thought very carefully about who would partake in the discussions. They were very closed spaces, where we did not say where we were meeting. There are names I could not give you. We knew the price that has been paid for rethinking and building another country. But they let in people who hurt the party. One congressman won a seat and became an informant for the Public Prosecutor’s Office and conservative sectors to initiate the political persecution that is still in the courts. His name is José Alberto Sánchez Guzmán; he later joined the Republican Union, one of Guatemala’s most right-wing parties.

When Arévalo came to power, if he had been able to bring together the different sectors, he would have been better able to face the attacks. But by remaining a closed sector —remember all the criticism of the clique behind Bernardo: sectors that only see the reality they want to see— they hide the other reality from him. That has been a fundamental mistake.

Does the fact that a new political party is being formed from Semilla mean that, as a political strategy, they consider the original party to be lost? I think there is a weariness from the persecution. They see few ways to keep Semilla going, and that led to the new formation of Raíces, but it is also part of the fragmentation that Semilla has faced, due to a lack of leadership and organic work. They will undoubtedly form Raíces. We don’t know what it will be like, but it seems like a new urban proposal from the capital. I don't know if the original party is considered a lost cause, but it is something different, even if it has the same grassroots support. I don’t know if they will be able to rescue Semilla from its current harassment. I do believe that Raíces will pick up that urban grassroots support. I don’t know if they will work with the grassroots support in the interior and rural areas.

Is this split beyond repair? I don’t know if it can be repaired, but it’s a wake-up call. It makes me very sad to compare the beginning of the party with this moment. Many of those of us who were there at the beginning are no longer there for many reasons. And those who remained had the enormous responsibility of maintaining those values, objectives, utopias, and reflection, and I don’t think they have been able to do so. It is a tragedy for the country’s politics because it confirms what our beloved Edelberto Torres Rivas used to say: Political parties in Central America have a short life span. It is deeply saddening to know that his words came true for the project he put his heart and soul into. Not even his own party was able to escape his analysis.

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What founding values were lost? Semilla published a document at the end of 2016 establishing four fundamental pillars: The first was to build a participatory democracy. It argued that it would not be possible to transform the state or build another country without working with the alternative majority: the different political, social, economic, and racial forces that make up the country. The second was to build a state by reconciling politics with ethics and promoting the interests of all the peoples that make up the Guatemalan nation, while also recognizing the ancestral forms of political organization and the ancestral authorities of the Indigenous peoples. The third was to address inequality by combating gender and ethnic discrimination and expanding access to public goods such as security, transportation, recreation, and the arts. The last was to build an inclusive economy with respect for nature, regulating access to natural resources and protecting the environment.

This was an attempt to build a holistic agenda based on democratic principles that recognized the material conditions of Guatemala and also the conditions of the different peoples that make up the territory. However, not all those who initiated the process came to power. Along the way, some died, such as Edelberto Torres Rivas and José Fernando Valdez, while others withdrew, but they excluded and turned their backs on founding figures such as Juan Alberto Fuentes Knight. Finally, like many other parties with a social-democratic outlook, they were infiltrated by actors who sold out the values that have gradually been diluted. This is perhaps the greatest risk facing any political movement: the loss of its transformative organicity once it gains power.

Will this division affect the president’s performance? It will undoubtedly affect him. It is part of the limited ability of the intellectual leaders. It is not about individual protagonism, but about continuing to build. Semilla was not capable of this. There is a struggle for power and space; the sweetness of power fools many and leads them to commit historic and unforgivable mistakes. Others, perhaps fewer, can still be repaired. There is some inexperience, as in the case of Samuel Pérez: a few days ago, a video of him fountain-drinking alcohol in a swimming pool was released. When questioned, he said, “That’s my private life.” With all due respect to Samuel, who is a clear and intelligent voice in the party, this is problematic. Our private actions are political, whether we are in public office or not. I hope Samuel reacts and undergoes a political and personal analysis.

You mentioned “historic and unforgivable” mistakes. What are they? First, Arévalo failed to fulfill citizens’ expectations to remove the attorney general, despite having the support of the majority of the country. This was a clear demand from Indigenous communities. Second, he failed to form a cabinet that reflected Guatemala's racial diversity from the outset. He should have recognized that 50 percent of the Guatemalan population is Indigenous and that there are high-level officials prepared to assume responsibilities within the executive branch. That cabinet should not have been the product of an electoral promise of racial diversity, but rather a natural response to the social conditions of 2023. And third, his submissive foreign policy toward states that violate human rights and his weak support for those who have been imprisoned in this new phase of criminalization of Indigenous resistance, driven by revenge for their rebellion against the Pact of the Corrupt and the Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Samuel Pérez, at the beginning of 2024, seemed to be the president’s most trusted legislator. Now part of the bloc accuses him of unilaterally leading a new political initiative and splitting the party. How do you assess his leadership? I respect Samuel. I think he is a young and extremely intelligent man who has gained political experience that he should know how to use. He was one of those who spoke of the promise to fight corruption and impunity, but we have not seen him take action to achieve this. He finds it difficult to forge and maintain alliances, and that is what leadership is all about, because otherwise you become a caudillo. If he wants to be a caudillo, it will be a problem and his political life will be very short; it would be a tragedy for someone who has accumulated significant political capital at such a young age.

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What is the state of the party’s relationship with Arévalo? There are two clear blocs: one led by the president and the other by Samuel, whose energetic activism is surpassing that of the president. And here again we see two enormous weaknesses of Arévalo: his inability to remove the attorney general and to lead the party that brought him to power. The crisis in Semilla reflects the national crisis; no one in Guatemala can escape this reality.

In El Salvador and Nicaragua, there are dictatorships. Could it be that the outlook in Guatemala is not so bleak after all? I don’t think we can say that we are better off than Nicaragua or El Salvador, because you have to look at it in context. Guatemala has a permanent political effervescence despite the repression. There is not total freedom, but there are some spaces. For me, the biggest void in Guatemalan politics is blatant racism. As long as they continue to underestimate Indigenous peoples, to think that a war against them must continue and not to consider that they will also be fundamental sectors in redefining this country, we will continue to see what we are seeing in national politics. They still think they have to be in the picture, but they can't change that mindset beyond that.