Guatemala’s Supreme Court docket of Justice has granted a everlasting injunction to the get together of progressive presidential candidate Bernardo Arévalo
BySONIA PÉREZ D. Related Press
August 18, 2023, 10:32 PM
Bernardo Arévalo, presidential candidate with Seed Motion get together, gestures after delivering his speech in the course of the closing marketing campaign rally at Structure sq. in Guatemala Metropolis, Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2023. Arevalo faces rival and former first girl Sandra Torres of the UNE get together within the Aug. 20 runoff election. (AP Photograph/Moises Castillo)
The Related Press
GUATEMALA CITY — Two days earlier than Guatemala’s presidential runoff election, the Supreme Court docket of Justice granted a everlasting injunction Friday to the get together of progressive candidate Bernardo Arévalo, blocking a decrease courtroom’s order suspending the get together’s authorized standing.
Court docket spokesman Rudy Esquivel mentioned it ordered the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to ignore the decrease courtroom’s ruling, which got here final month on the request of prosecutors who mentioned they have been investigating how the get together had gathered the mandatory signatures to register years earlier.
The excessive courtroom had earlier blocked the suspension with a brief injunction on the request of Arévalo’s Seed Motion.
The brand new ruling could be appealed to Guatemala’s highest tribunal, the Constitutional Court docket.
Guatemalan electoral regulation forbids the suspension of a celebration in the course of the electoral course of. The unique suspension was granted after the primary spherical of voting June 25 wherein Arévalo gained a spot in Sunday’s runoff towards former first girl Sandra Torres.
The Lawyer Common’s Workplace investigation of the Seed Motion was introduced simply earlier than the primary spherical outcomes have been licensed in July. Federal brokers have raided the places of work of electoral authorities and the political get together, carting off containers of paperwork and issuing arrest orders.
Prosecutors allege that a few of the signatures submitted by the get together have been fictitious or belonged to {dead} individuals.
Arévalo has dismissed the investigation as politically motivated and aimed toward preserving him out of the competitors.
Latest opinion polls have given him a large lead over the conservative Torres, who’s making her third bid for the presidency.
Torres has used the investigation to assault Arévalo. On Friday at her marketing campaign’s closing occasion within the capital she instructed supporters that the Seed Motion was making an attempt to steal the election.
