Left-of-center opposition legislator Bernardo Arévalo shattered all forecasts, seizing second place in Guatemala’s presidential elections on Sunday and advancing to an August runoff. Arévalo will face political boss Sandra Torres.

After Zamora’s sentence, Brian A. Nichols, Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, stated that “This verdict threatens independent journalism and freedom of expression in Guatemala.”

After candidate registration for Guatemala’s June elections closed this weekend, electoral authorities, toeing the line for far-right political operatives, have spuriously excluded two presidential tickets, clearing the way for conservative Zury Ríos.

An Indigenous female farmworker leader hopes to become Guatemala’s next president. But Thelma Cabrera faces an uphill fight after the country’s Electoral Tribunal refused to allow her to register her candidacy.

Thousands of people demonstrated in Guatemala on Tuesday to protest a court’s decision not to allow an Indigenous candidate to register for the country’s June 25 presidential elections. Thelma Cabrera was to have been the presidential candidate for the leftist Peoples Liberation Movement

Nine months before the presidential election, the country’s right-wing regime is fracturing into rivaling projects as progressive groups discuss the elusive idea of a united candidacy. Meanwhile, electoral authorities are indulging the pre-campaigning by the ruling party and top conservative Zury Ríos.

For more than three years, Juan Francisco Sandoval headed the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity (FECI), a prosecutorial unit specialized in high-stakes corruption cases investigating the upper echelons of Guatemalan politics and business.

On the one hand, corruption and organized crime won the presidential race. On the other hand, grassroots movements showed their strength.