The viability of Arévalo’s anti-corruption agenda may rest on whether the president succeeds in removing Attorney General Consuelo Porras, whose office has targeted the administration with a relentless wave of legal attacks aimed at undermining its authority.
As president-elect, Arévalo pledged to demand Porras’ resignation as one of his first acts in power, but under Guatemalan law a president cannot unilaterally dismiss an attorney general. Arévalo has instead sought alternative routes, but has yet to find any that work.
To begin with, the president has tried to reform the law that blocks him from firing the attorney general, but his petition has twice been ignored by Congress. His government has also filed two petitions aimed at lifting the attorney general’s political immunity – the first over an administrative misdemeanor, the second for allegedly abusing her authority. The Supreme Court rejected the first petition after months of delay. The court is yet to rule on the second.
This is a case study taken from an in-depth InSight Crime investigation into Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo’s stumbling anti-corruption agenda. Download the full report or explore additional case studies here.
A Showdown With Porras
Porras’ legal attacks on Semilla have succeeded in weakening the government’s platform. Almost immediately after Arévalo reached the second round of the 2023 elections, the Attorney General’s Office launched an investigation into possible flaws in the party’s registration, claiming to have found a series of irregularities on the signature lists collected to get Semilla on the ballot. The probe provided the pretext for a now-sanctioned judge to suspend Arévalo’s party. Enacted in July 2023, the suspension has derailed Semilla’s ambitions in Congress, depriving the party of important powers and preventing it from steering the legislative agenda towards anti-corruption reforms.
Prosecutors have also hounded Arévalo with legal attacks. In the weeks before his inauguration, prosecutors tried to strip the president-elect of his political immunity over the signatures case, in addition to a separate – but also spurious – investigation based on allegations that Arévalo leveraged student protests to boost his political platform. Arévalo and his allies have dismissed the cases as politically motivated.
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The distractions continued following Arévalo’s inauguration, with prosecutors stubbornly pursuing both cases and also launching new legal attacks. Sustaining this barrage of investigations – no matter how dubious – appears to be part of a multi-pronged strategy to paralyze the government, erode its credibility, and uphold Semilla’s suspension.
There have also been direct attacks. In August, authorities arrested Ligia Hernández, one of Semilla’s founding members and the head of Guatemala’s victim advocacy institute. (She faced charges related to unreported campaign donations, part of the “Semilla Corruption” case.) With her arrest, Hernández became the first and only cabinet member to be detained during Arévalo’s tenure. Her detention was costly for Arévalo, who faced fierce criticism – including from within his party – over the administration’s tepid efforts to counter the prosecutors who arrested Hernández. Worse, Hernández eventually accepted the charges against her to avoid further jail time, despite dismissing the case as politically motivated. Her plea would later provide grounds for the judge behind Semilla’s suspension to order the party’s cancellation, which, if confirmed, would wipe out the party entirely.
Still, Hernández’s arrest was just one in a string of attacks on senior administration officials. Weeks earlier, Porras had lobbied the country’s Constitutional Court in the hope of deposing cabinet officials spearheading the government’s attempts to oust her, including Arévalo’s private secretary, press secretary, and solicitor general.
| Legal Attacks Aimed at Weakening Arévalo and Semilla’s Political Platform | ||
| Strategy | Examples | Impact |
| Requests to lift political immunity (antejuicios) | – Prosecutors have requested that Arévalo’s immunity be stripped in three separate investigations | – Requests could open the door to Arévalo’s impeachment, if the Supreme Court and congress side with prosecutors |
| Arrests | – Prosecutors arrested Ligia Hernández, Semilla co-founder and head of Guatemala’s victim advocacy institute, as part of “Semilla Corruption” case
– Prosecutors secured arrest warrants against members of Semilla who collected signatures for the party’s registration |
– Arrests weaken Arévalo administration and fuel narrative of electoral fraud |
| Inspections | – Anti-corruption prosecutors inspect finance ministry following budget negotiations between Finance Minister Johnathan Menkos and congressional officials
– Prosecutors from the same unit enter congressional offices prior to vote on national budget |
– Intimidates congressional officials allied with Semilla |
| Court appeals | – Porras appeals to the Constitutional Court, claiming senior Arévalo officials are breaking the law by pursuing her dismissal
– Prosecutors ask judges to extend Semilla’s suspension |
– Constitutional Court blocks Arévalo’s attempt to oust Porras – Extension of party suspension weakens Semilla’s platform in congress |
| Plea bargains | – Electoral officials plea guilty in “Semilla Corruption” case to avoid jail time | – Guilty verdicts fuel narrative of electoral fraud; provides justification to extend Semilla’s suspension
– Allows prosecutors to strengthen case against Semilla |
Porras then upped the ante again. On August 21, she requested that the president’s immunity be stripped over allegations that he ordered illegal payments to construction companies hired by the Ministry of Communications, Infrastructure, and Housing. Critics immediately questioned the credibility of the case, which was put together in little over a month and relied on ambiguous evidence.
What’s more, the courts have yet to approve any of Porras’ requests to lift Arévalo’s political immunity. That barrier has also prevented Porras from breaching the president’s inner circle. But her numerous petitions have left a series of top government figures in precarious positions, with their fate in the hands of a volatile court system.
“They’re just waiting for us to make a mistake. They only need one to go after us,” a senior cabinet official, who preferred to remain anonymous, told InSight Crime.
The legal tit-for-tat has eroded the government’s authority, as Arévalo has been unable to deliver on one of his most important campaign promises.
It has also disrupted broader governance efforts. Simply put, it is hard for political institutions to function normally when the president and attorney general are at war.
Porras’ Self-Preservation
Porras can also use the threat of legal persecution to keep allies and potential rivals in line, thus ensuring her own political survival. This may explain why a majority of congressional officials – many with questionable track records – excused themselves from two consecutive sessions in May, when lawmakers were set to discuss a potential reform to the law that prohibits Arévalo from removing Porras.
Inspections conducted by the Attorney General’s Office have coincided with other key votes in congress. For instance, its anti-corruption unit (Fiscalía contra la Corrupción) entered the office of congress’ board of directors to request information on possible hiring irregularities, just as reports emerged that Semilla had secured enough votes to approve the budget increase. The reconnaissance was seen by analysts and lawmakers who spoke with InSight Crime as a scare tactic aimed at dissuading congressional representatives from passing the budget increase. (The vote represented a threat for Porras, as the two-thirds majority required to approve a budget increase is the same threshold needed to alter the law preventing Arévalo from removing her.)
SEE ALSO: Democracy on the Line as Guatemalan Prosecutors Take Aim at President-Elect
Despite the turbulence in congress, Porras has multiple lines of defense. To begin with, maintaining positive relations with the Supreme Court is crucial to the attorney general’s survival. The court went months without debating the Arévalo administration’s request to lift her political immunity, filed in late February, before eventually rejecting the petition.
Equally, if not more important for Porras, is the Constitutional Court (Corte de Constituionalidad – CC), which has the final say on all legal disputes. The court has repeatedly shielded Porras from Arévalo’s attacks, continuing a mutually-beneficial alliance that has also seen the Attorney General’s Office benefit certain CC magistrates by persecuting their political rivals.
Given Porras’ extensive protection, Arévalo’s most feasible path to removing her may be to wait until the 2026 selection process for a new attorney general. But this is a heavily corrupted and politicized process, in which Arévalo has little to no control over the selection of six candidates from which he must pick Porras’ successor. And even with Porras gone, her legacy may take years to overcome.
Beneath Arévalo and Porras’ high-profile legal tussle lies a bleak reality for the daily operations of the Attorney General’s Office. Current and former prosecutors told InSight Crime that Porras’ internal purge has spread to practically all branches of state prosecution, both at the national and regional levels. The sources described facing resistance and pressure from their superiors to resign when pursuing investigative leads. Instead, prosecutors are routinely encouraged to dismiss investigations, or they are given an unreasonably short timeframe – around 30 days – to conduct investigations before their cases are closed for demerit. Information leaks and compromised internal communication channels add further stress to the increasingly dysfunctional work environment within the Attorney General’s Office, the same sources told InSight Crime.
Porras has also made administrative tweaks to curate a network of loyal prosecutors, the sources said. Porras has downgraded the rank of prosecutors to “employees of confidence” (personal de confianza), a lesser status that deprives them of protection from dismissal or a transfer without just cause. The adjustment has allowed Porras to systematically violate due process to dismiss unwanted prosecutors or ensure they are transferred away from their areas of expertise. It has simultaneously allowed her to position unqualified prosecutors in units dealing with corruption and impunity.
“Everyone is living in fear because you can be fired at any time,” a prosecutor who resigned in early 2024 told InSight Crime.