De-legitimised

Until the 20th century revolutions were never the direct result of action by revolutionaries. Ancien Regimes just ceased to function as advertised and then bled out in terms of legitimacy. 

Even later there remained underlying triggers, usually a combination of severe economic crises with foreign policy pressure, which provided radicals with their moment. 

I suspect that future historians of the genre will have reason to be extremely intrigued by what has happened, by what is about to happen, in Guatemala in 2023. 

The people have elected a President whose proposed plan for government would be difficult to describe as radical. There is certainly no call for a significant redistribution of wealth and power. 

Movimiento Semilla’s previous candidate for the top job, Thelma Aldana, was long considered conservative, but like Arévalo, her central political goal became one of restricting the impact of corrupt actors in and around government. 

Yet the response of the mafias that prey on the state here to the popular choice of administration has been so shameless that it now threatens to undermine the very fabric of constitutional order in this country. 

Since the first round results it has been clear that the Ministerio Público was inclined to discredit itself beyond hope of repair. But as of today, the Constitutional Court seems to have embarked on a parallel course. 

We are reaching a point where the everyday credibility of the existing structure of law and governance might completely evaporate, and under the most minimal of pressure from unusual agitation. 

Arévalo’s father began a process of reform which came unstuck under his successor, because it chose to cross a line that social democratic Costa Rica stopped just shy of — stepping on the toes of Eisenhower’s government, specifically the Dulles brothers with their interest in bananas. 

Arbenz’s not especially radical proposal to repurpose fallow land then held by United Fruit led to his downfall and that of Guatemala’s first stab at a democratic state run broadly in the interests of the majority. 

The second stab is at a crucial juncture. This Arévalo is making his stand on the hill of clean politics. The mafias know that uncorrupted government is possibly the most radical threat they could face, and that once they are squeezed out, it will be so much harder to force their way back in. 

One might dream up all kinds of radical, populist nonsense and head to the polls, but it is the simple, easy-to-comprehend platform of Movimiento Semilla that appears most threatening to the forces of indecency. 

The worrying thing is that they seem intent on bringing down the house around them as they fall.