It would be hard to describe how tense and volatile yesterday –July 13- was in Guatemala as the ‘CovenantOfTheCorrupt’ regime attempted, via its corrupted Public Prosecutor’s office, to “suspend” the legal status of the Semilla Party, that is widely favored to win the August 20 runoff election.
 

• Early on July 14, State investigators and police, many wearing facemasks, illegally raided the offices of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, and confiscated – with no respect for legally required chain of custody/ inventory procedures – thousands of files, purported related to alleged criminal actions carried out by the Semilla Party and or its members.
• Thousands of Guatemalans immediately took to the streets in the capital, across the country.
• Led by independent outlets, the media – with some mainstream media starting to do their jobs right – is providing 24/7 coverage to the efforts of the CovenantOfTheCorrupt regime to carry out the ‘electoral’ coup.
• Internationally, civil society, some governments and media chimed, reporting on and denouncing the continuing acts of illegal election interference.
• Lawyers filed immediate legal challenges to the corrupted “suspension” order of the Public Prosecutor’s office.

 
By days end, the Constitutional Court was forced to provisionally - yes, only provisionally! - suspend the corrupted “suspension” order, and enable the Semilla Party to continue advancing towards the August 20 runoff election.
 
What is next?
Besides the omni-present threat of violence – widespread repression against protests and/or possible repression targeting key Semilla Party members, there is now a risk that the corrupted Public Prosecutor’s office will open formal criminal investigations against key members of the Semilla Party, and possibly move to detain them.
 
“As explained by the lawyers, the [prosecutors] can carry out raids, request arrest warrants or requests for withdrawal of legal immunity against members of the Semilla party, all related to the case that was announced for the alleged falsification of signatures to incorporate affiliates to the party.”
(Amparo garantiza participación de Semilla, pero riesgo de criminalización persiste, julio 13, 2023, Por Prensa Comunitaria, https://prensacomunitaria.org/2023/07/amparo-garantiza-participacion-de-semilla-pero-riesgo-de-criminalizacion-persiste/)
 
For anyone remotely following human rights issues in Guatemala, over the past years –indeed decades-, the regime has corrupted the judicial branch and uses the Public Prosecutor’s office as a tool of repression, filing trumped up charges to then arrest whoever they are seeking to silence.