#HappeningInGuatemala

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The Useless Fool

By: Samuel Perez-Attias*

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“It was to be expected: the construction of democracy in Guatemala is a difficult task. However, being difficult does not mean that it is impossible.

How did Jimmy Morales, Guatemalan President, get into power?

From an individual perspective, it can be inferred that he arrived as a puppet : without a government plan, without capacity, without leadership. He was the perfect puppet for those who have the power to manipulate the threads, as journalist Marielos Monzón wrote in her column last August.

From the perspective of a certain part of the citizenry, Jimmy Morales was the figure that rescued the institutional order after the crisis of 2015, in which the former president, Otto Perez Molina resigned.

From a political perspective, Jimmy became the perfect useful fool for those who saw their power quotas threatened if the team headed by Sandra Torres came to the presidency. It is likely that Jimmy was the least bad option for certain powers that supported the failed attempt of Manuel Baldizón and his henchmen. 

Seeing that he could not continue in the electoral race, they manage to kidnap power again democratically through the capture of the FCN political party and the current president Morales. In a year and a few months, the pieces were accommodated.

Having access to institutional power through FCN deputies (elected and retired) in Congress and key positions in the Executive, including the president and members of the cabinet, informal power is formally consolidated again.

However, there remains an enemy: the justice system, which has been strengthening.

In particular the direction of the commissioner against Impunity, Iván Velásquez in dismantling clandestine security structures and illegal security forces.

Both the former Attorney General Paz y Paz and the current one, Thelma Aldana, and a number of legal professionals at the same time assumed the construction of the institutional structure, the reorganization of the system (prosecutors and judges such as Miguel Ángel Gálvez and Claudia Escobar) and the fight against impunity in the country.

For the first time in the history of the country, a president, a vice president and a large part of his cabinet, as well as deputies, businessmen and members of other social and political institutions traditionally untouchable in the country, face criminal proceedings in Guatemala for corruption and links with bodies illegal and clandestine structures. Some are in exile, fleeing from justice, including members of traditionally powerful families at the economic and political levels.

There is great misinformation, on the one hand, by means that are favorable to these dark powers and, on the other, by spokespersons of traditional and emerging powers, entrenched in parallel in the State and in the economic, social and political dynamics normal.

Observing the bulls from the slaughterhouse is different from being in the ring. Soon they might see themselves running off the bull in the sand instead of watching the bullfight from their comfortable VIP chairs.

When being cornered and without many handles, they resort to crude strategies: to build the enemy. And that's where the media strategy begins. With a couple of controversial spokespeople, and a not so smart manipulation of media, social media and propaganda, the aim is to raise profiles of more puppets, this time to build an imaginary through narrative. Now the CICIG, the MP and the whole process of justice are the enemy.

The ideal imaginary in a country still wounded by internal war and misinformed is to go to the Cold War speech: "The Left Lurks." We turn to the discourse of nationalist and patriotic fervor: "Outside foreign interference." With a poor and desperate population we turn to the discourse of religious conviction: "The president is the anointed and his decisions are messianic." All these are discourses that appeal to the ignorance and the emotionality of the uncritical, ignorant, desperate and uneducated citizenship. They work in the incautious minds.

Already with virtual interlocutors (whether real or artificially created in networks like sounding boards), the breeding ground is used to move the puppet elected president.

However, the puppet also has a tail that will bruise him. Living in a country where impunity was the norm makes any reckless person fall into the cracks.

The puppet's family is accused of corruption, but the straw that spilled the glass was precisely that the threads that move the puppet begin to be visible. Now the powers that move it are threatened.

Who was the useful fool in 2015 takes unhappy political decisions probably advised by that structure of power that moves threads, which does not want to allow the strengthening of justice to continue its course and continue to crumble the solid building of impunity that has allowed them to continue capturing the state for their benefit.

The useful fool made erred decisions when traveling last August to the U.N. and allegedly requesting the expulsion of the Commissioner Velásquez, but finds no echo in his unfounded petition.

According to the U.N. news webpage, Secretary General, Antonio Guterrez was shocked to learn that the President of Guatemala, Jimmy Morales, has issued a statement declaring Ivan Velasquez 'persona non grata' 

Go then to plan B, announcing in a video the expulsion of the Commissioner yet, without the support of a large part of the population that elected him.

Last week, CICIG evidenced the links of some mega-rich businessmen involved in the illicit financing of FCN party, just before the elections. Businessmen funneled more than $1 million to Morales' National Convergence Front party, which carried him to the presidency.

The businessmen accepted the allegations and asked for public indulgence in a press conference last Friday.

The decisions of the puppet keep positioning Guatemala as an unstable and untrustworthy country for investors and international public opinion.

Protests in the streets keep taking place and the international image of a “rotten country”, according to F. Fukuyama, is where Guatemala stands now.