Podcast: Two Years of Siege at the Guatemalan Electoral Tribunal

The following is a transcript of episode 47 of the weekly El Faro English podcast, Central America in Minutes.

CHAVES: Yesterday we won an important battle, but the war isn’t over. They’ll keep attacking me, but people of Costa Rica, you have a faithful servant in me.

GRESSIER, HOST: That’s Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves celebrating two weeks ago, after lawmakers failed to reach the votes needed to lift his immunity on accusations of corruption. He survived for now, and his political heir, presidential candidate Laura Fernández, has even floated giving him a cabinet post —that means immunity— if she wins the election on February 1.

Institutions up for grabs

We’ll get back to Costa Rica at the end of today’s show. But first, to Guatemala, where a more than two-year-old storm continues to rage. On Tuesday, the Public Prosecutor’s Office raided the facilities of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, or TSE — again. And on Wednesday, a TSE employee pleaded guilty to criminal charges.

Remember: The TSE was the hotbed of an internationally sanctioned coup effort led by Attorney General Consuelo Porras in 2023 to overturn the election results, imprison President Bernardo Arévalo, and cancel his party, Semilla. This also included charges against magistrates and employees and the illegal seizure of ballot boxes.

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The Tribunal may have refused to illegally overturn the election results, but they hardly had their hands clean: As El Faro reported in June 2023, TSE magistrate Blanca Alfaro had denounced an effort to buy off the Tribunal by Miguel Martínez, the closest operator of then-President Alejandro Giammattei.

The coup effort was so flagrant that thousands of Guatemalans blocked highways and protested for over a hundred days in front of Porras’s office and across the country.

Now, in this newest case, led by the Prosecutor’s Office for Electoral Crimes, TSE worker Gustavo Rodolfo Pérez Coromac and attorney Mario Cristóbal Urrutia Vidal were arrested at home.

The case has been sealed, but Pérez Coromac told the press outside the courtroom that he was arrested on charges of bribery, abuse of authority, and “ideological falsehood”, which means knowingly falsifying information on an official document.

Urrutia, meanwhile, said that prosecutors told him they were coming for a search, but in the end, they brought an arrest warrant. He stated that he never worked at the Tribunal, and that he is a university professor who sometimes litigates.

On Wednesday, Angelita Martínez, union leader and former head of the TSE archive, which stores electoral paperwork, pleaded guilty of abuse of authority in the “Semilla Corruption Case”, which has been used to try to imprison Arévalo’s party members.

But what seems to be most revealing about this renewed onslaught is that it all happened just two days after former Semilla legislators announced that their new group, Raíces, is advancing toward legal incorporation as a political party. We covered this rift in Arévalo’s party in episode 36.

But authorities are still being coy about the precise reasons for the recent arrests. TSE President Blanca Alfaro stated that the Tribunal itself filed a criminal complaint against TSE workers who in 2023 had joined a Committee for the Formation of a Political Party. She didn’t say which one.

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Alfaro described the raids as an unexpected attack. She said that prosecutors could have just requested the files and they would have turned them over. This is her talking to the press.

ALFARO: If there are shortcomings, help us fix them, but don't discredit us by criminalizing more members.

GRESSIER: This is all unfolding just five months before the February election of five new electoral magistrates and alternates to a six-year term. The institution is autonomous and is responsible for organizing general elections, which will be held in June and August 2027. Alfaro says she fears that this criminalization will affect the next election of magistrates.

In addition to the failed attempt to overturn the 2023 elections, four of the five incumbent TSE magistrates stand accused of embezzlement for the purchase of software for the transmission of election results.

Constitutional lawyer Edgar Ortiz said in the podcast TanGente that the four had to go into preventive exile to avoid losing their jobs, but when they returned, a judge informed them that because they were involved in the proceedings, they had been suspended from their posts. “This is something that has never been seen before in history,” Ortiz said.

The only incumbent magistrate left standing is Blanca Alfaro, and she is basically working alone because the alternates have day jobs as practicing attorneys.

The TSE may be in crisis, but it’s not the only cloud on the horizon. Digital outlet Plaza Pública notes that next year the most important institutions will be up for grabs: in February, the TSE and Constitutional Court; between April and May, the next attorney general, and in October 2026 the presidency of the Supreme Court of Justice, to name only a few.

“In under one year, Guatemala will undergo a series of elections that haven’t been seen since the return to democracy,” Plaza Pública reports. That was 40 years ago, in 1985 — almost forever ago in a country where the median age is 23.

Foot on the gas

GRESSIER: Last, we go to Costa Rica. Our colleague Gabriel Labrador takes things from here.

LABRADOR: Two weeks ago, Chaves survived the lifting of his immunity on corruption allegations by just four votes in the AssEmbly. The motion was unprecedented for a sitting president. The case can be reopened once Chaves leaves office in May.

Prosecutors allege Chaves pressured a contractor to hand over about $30,000 dollars from a video production to one of his trusted advisers. We took a close look at this case —which was first revealed by newspaper La Nación— in episode 30. The president has spent plenty of effort attacking Attorney General Carlo Díaz over the case.

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Confrontation is part of the Chaves brand. The Supreme Court condemned his government for harassment of the parent company of La Nación, repeated verbal attacks against the press, and curbing freedom of information. This week, prosecutors accused Chaves of trying to influence an investigation involving the founder of CRHoy, a media outlet critical of his administration.

The persecution framing from Chaves set the tone for allied messaging. His presidential candidate Laura Fernández of the Pueblo Soberano —or “Sovereign People”— Party, quickly claimed victory from the failed vote:

FERNÁNDEZ: Under the mistaken and cynical belief that they were weakening him and our campaign, the opposite happened. Both Don Rodrigo and our campaign come out stronger because Costa Rica has changed.

LABRADOR: Just this week, Costa Rica’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) has filed a new request to lift Chaves’ immunity — this time accusing Chaves of using official events to comment on electoral issues and attack rival parties.

But with under four months until election day on February 1, Chaves has much to gain by keeping his foot on the gas.

This episode of Central America in Minutes was written by Yuliana Ramazzini and Gabriel Labrador and edited by Roman Gressier. Production and soundtrack by Omnionn. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, and iHeart podcast platforms.