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THE electoral body in charge of regulating Guatemala’s political groups, known as the Citizen Registry, announced the suspension on Thursday of president-elect Bernardo Arevalo’s Seed Movement party.
A judge had granted the party’s suspension at the request of the Attorney General’s Office back in July, shortly before Mr Arevalo was declared the second-place finisher in the initial round of voting.
But a higher court ruled that the party could not be suspended during the election cycle, which only ended on October 31.
Mr Arevalo went on to win a run-off in August and is scheduled to take office in January.
However, since the original judge’s order for the party’s suspension remained pending, the Citizen Registry said Thursday it executed the order.
The Attorney General’s Office has alleged wrongdoing in the way the party collected the necessary signatures to register years earlier.
Observers accuse Attorney General Consuelo Porras of trying to meddle in the election to thwart the president-elect and subvert the will of the people.
Luis Gerardo Ramirez, the registry’s spokesperson, said that the party cannot hold assemblies or carry out administrative procedures.
Mr Ramirez also said the party could appeal the registry’s decision to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.
“The suspension is unprecedented, no criminal judge could suspend a party because it’s illegal,” said Samuel Perez, leader of the Seed Movement’s lawmakers in the congress.
“The problem is that the judge’s suspension isn’t legal, it’s political.”
It remained to be seen how the order would affect other institutions such as Congress, where Seed Movement lawmakers were set to take their seats.
Opponents of the Seed Movement in Congress already had declared those incoming lawmakers independent, meaning they could not chair committees or hold other leadership positions.
A court at the time had ruled that the Congress couldn’t deny Seed Movement lawmakers leadership positions on grounds that the party couldn’t be suspended during the election cycle.
