The constitution stipulates a four-year presidential term and prohibits reelection. In August 2023, anticorruption candidate Bernardo Arévalo of the Movimiento Semilla won 58 percent of the second-round vote, defeating former first lady Sandra Torres of the center-left UNE to become president. Though the results were generally deemed credible by international observers, the election period was marred by significant irregularities. During the preelection period, several presidential candidates were barred from contesting the election on arbitrary grounds. Organization of American States (OAS) electoral observers also noted some incidents of election-related violence, and European Union (EU) election monitors described the period leading up to the second-round vote as “characterized by repeated attacks on the rule of law” by incumbent authorities attempting to disrupt the electoral process.

Following the June general election, ruling-party officials and the Public Prosecutor’s Office made repeated attempts to undermine the democratic process. Such efforts included attempting to use judicial institutions to ignore, delay, or reverse the certification of results; intimidate electoral authorities and Movimiento Semilla members and candidates; and cast doubt on the electoral results. In July, the Constitutional Court briefly suspended the results of the first-round vote after a group of defeated conservative parties complained of alleged irregularities, but a partial recount held in response did not change the result of the polls.

Efforts to prevent Arévalo from taking office did not stop after his August election win. In December, prosecutors requested that Arévalo be stripped of his political immunity—the third such request since August—and called for the annulment of the elections. The Constitutional Court subsequently issued a ruling ordering all elected officials to assume office in January 2024. In December, the head of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) publicly stated that the election results were “valid, official, and unalterable,” and that Arévalo would take office as scheduled in 2024.

Members of the unicameral, 160-seat Congress are elected to four-year terms. Legislators were elected in June 2023. Movimiento Semilla won 23 seats, the UNE won 28 seats, and outgoing president Alejandro Giammattei’s Vamos party won 39 seats. The Cabal party won 18, and the remaining 52 seats were split between 13 parties.

The 2023 election results were deemed credible, but observers noted some political violence on election day, which resulted in polls being suspended in two municipalities.

Since the June legislative election, Movimiento Semilla and its representatives have faced targeted, politically motivated attacks by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and incumbent legislators. The party was suspended in November, at the end of the electoral period, and remained so through year’s end. While Movimiento Semilla’s suspension does not invalidate its congressional seats, after the party’s suspension, its legislators were designated as independent, preventing them from being recognized as a bloc, chairing committees, and holding leadership positions in the legislature.

Score Change: The score declined from 3 to 2 because incumbent legislators have claimed that the suspension of the Movimiento Semilla disqualifies that party’s elected legislators from taking on leadership roles in the new Congress.

The Guatemalan legal framework provides the basis for holding democratic elections. However, many controversial decisions by Guatemalan courts and the TSE in 2022 and 2023 favored the ruling party and other conservative parties. In 2023, approximately 10 percent of candidates were arbitrarily prevented from contesting elections on dubious grounds, reducing genuine competition and prompting concern about the courts’ impartiality and the fairness of the elections.

Electoral authorities were the target of intimidation, threats, and undue legal actions by the Public Prosecutor’s Office during 2023. According to the OAS, the office carried out numerous raids on the TSE without due cause, attacking “the functions, independence, and autonomy” of the body. In December, Congress stripped four TSE magistrates of their immunity from prosecution, which the opposition reportedly believed to be a further attempt to obstruct the transfer of power to President-elect Arévalo.

Elections take place within an inchoate multiparty system in which new parties are frequently created, often without sufficient resources and infrastructure to gain broad support. Poor enforcement of party finance regulations has allowed some candidates and parties access to vast resources.

In 2023, the authorities undertook concerted efforts to suppress the growth and success of the opposition Movimiento Semilla through intimidation tactics and irregular legal proceedings. The party faced suspension several times during the year and was investigated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office on dubious charges. The party was ultimately suspended in November, once the electoral period ended, on the request of a judge who was reportedly investigating alleged “anomalies” in the party’s creation. In December, prosecutors called on the TSE to annul the election results; the head of the TSE responded by declaring the election results “unalterable,” and OAS representatives decried the prosecutors’ statements as “an attempted coup.” The suspension of Movimiento Semilla and other efforts to exclude the party and its president-elect, Bernardo Arévalo, from entering government continued through year’s end.

Score Change: The score declined from 3 to 2 because the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the electoral authorities have engaged in sustained legal attacks on the opposition Movimiento Semilla, making repeated attempts to prosecute and suspend the party throughout the year.

Guatemalan politics are unstable, and power rotates between parties frequently, which can discourage a traditional opposition from coalescing. New parties have routinely gained significant quotas of power in recent years.

Numerous candidates were disqualified for arbitrary reasons during the 2023 election period. The Public Prosecutor’s Office, headed by Attorney General María Consuelo Porras, also led efforts to suspend and disqualify Movimiento Semilla; ultimately, the suspension of the party was blocked by the courts until after the official electoral period finished at the end of October. The party remained suspended through year’s end, preventing Movimiento Semilla lawmakers from operating as a bloc in the legislature. Authorities also attempted to challenge and delegitimize the election results and prevent Arévalo from taking office, including by seeking the nullification of the election results in December.

Score Change: The score declined from 3 to 2 due to the authorities’ repeated attempts to arbitrarily disqualify candidates from the opposition Movimiento Semilla during the election period and to prevent a transfer of power to Movimiento Semilla leader and president-elect Bernardo Arévalo.

Verbal harassment and physical violence against voters are common during elections. Weak and arbitrary enforcement of campaign finance regulations has permitted lopsided resource advantages, as well as financing of candidates by special interests and organized criminal groups, distorting the political choices of citizens. Direct vote buying and use of public funds to influence the outcome of elections is also common. Observers reported that armed groups and criminal organizations have attempted to sway the results of local races.

Members of ethnic and other minority groups struggle to fully exercise their political rights. There are no affirmative measures in place to promote the election of representatives of Indigenous peoples, who are underrepresented despite accounting for approximately half of the population. Of the 30 political parties that participated in the 2023 elections, only one self-identified as Indigenous. Out of a total of 160 legislative seats, at least 12 will be held by Indigenous members.

Women are underrepresented in politics. In the incoming Congress, women will hold 20 percent of the total number of seats.

The elected government and legislature determine government policies, but they are frequently subject to influence by outside interests. Former military officials continue to wield significant power.

Following the 2023 elections, incumbent officials made numerous attempts to reverse the results of the polls and prevent Arévalo from being duly installed in office. At year’s end, undemocratic and politically motivated obstruction attempts were still underway ahead of a transfer of power scheduled for January 2024.

Business groups continue to hold important sway over all branches of government, and serve on the governing bodies of various public institutions. Organized crime groups have penetrated state institutions.

Corruption, which is often related to organized crime, remains a serious problem. Authorities continue to obstruct the fight against corruption, stall prosecutions, and dismantle cases put forth by anticorruption bodies such as the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). Judges, prosecutors, journalists, and civil society actors committed to tackling corruption have increasingly been targeted with physical attacks, threats, malicious lawsuits, and defamation campaigns.

Attorney General Porras has fired, transferred, or initiated frivolous cases against numerous anticorruption prosecutors and independent judges. During 2023, the attorney general pursued politically motivated legal actions in an apparent attempt to delegitimize the elections and prevent President-elect Arévalo from taking office.

The United States (US) government has sanctioned several former and current Guatemalan government officials, including Attorney General Porras and at least 10 judges and prosecutors, for corruption-related offenses.

Public information offices frequently fail to publish data about public expenditures as required. The Law on Access to Information is poorly enforced; nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) continue to file grievances over this lack of enforcement and work to encourage the government to adhere to the law’s provisions. Contracting and budgeting processes are opaque and racked with corruption.

While the constitution protects freedom of speech, journalists self-censor when covering sensitive topics including drug trafficking, corruption, organized crime, and human rights violations. Public officials, illicit actors, the police, and individuals aligned with companies operating on Indigenous lands routinely threaten media workers.

Attacks, threats, and false legal cases against journalists increased during 2023. According to international press freedom watchdogs, at least four journalists were murdered during the year, potentially in retaliation for their work. In June, the founder and president of elPeriódico, José Rubén Zamora, was sentenced to six years in prison on spurious money laundering charges. His conviction was overturned on appeal in October due to “procedural irregularities,” but Zamora remained in prison awaiting a retrial through year’s end. His lawyers and several other journalists who have collaborated with the newspaper have also been targeted with harassment and intimidation, and the newspaper was forced to close in May. At least 20 journalists have left the country in recent years.

Rural, Indigenous, and women journalists are afforded little protection from discrimination, threats, and frivolous legal action, and reporters covering regional news suffered attacks and detentions on several occasions in 2023.

Media ownership is highly concentrated, and independent media outlets face financial constraints due to decreasing advertisement revenue. The country’s cybercrime laws have failed to protect outlets and reporters from harassment by trolls for hire, while public officials abuse unrelated laws to censor media outlets. Online attacks targeting independent journalists and media outlets in 2023 included the hacking of websites and social media accounts, among other online surveillance efforts.

The constitution guarantees religious freedom, and individuals are free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief.

Although the government does not interfere with academic freedom, scholars have received death threats for questioning past human rights abuses or continuing injustices.

Many Guatemalans take precautions when speaking about social and political issues outside of their homes due to a high level of insecurity in the country. Journalists and human rights defenders have reported incidents of harassment and surveillance, which, along with increased intimidation and harassment of perceived opponents of the government, has encouraged greater self-censorship.

The constitution guarantees freedom of assembly, but this right is not always protected. Police frequently threaten and at times use violence against protesters. Protests related to environmental or Indigenous rights have been met with harsh resistance from the police and armed groups. The Giammattei administration has declared states of prevention and siege, emergency measures that enable the government to restrict constitutional guarantees, in response to protests in recent years.

Between October and December 2023, thousands of people across Guatemala participated in protests calling for the results of the August runoff election to be respected. The protests escalated in early October as Indigenous leaders launched a national strike demanding the resignation of controversial attorney general María Consuelo Porras for allegedly trying to overturn the election results. While most demonstrations proceeded peacefully, there were some isolated incidents of violence, including an attack on protesters by several dozen unknown assailants. Demonstrators blocked roads in both rural and urban areas during the protests, drawing criticism from members of the Constitutional Court and President Giammattei, who called the road blockades illegal. Security forces occasionally used force, including tear gas, to disperse protests.

The constitution guarantees freedom of association, and a variety of NGOs operate. However, Guatemala lacks a comprehensive public policy to protect human rights defenders, and recent legislation has targeted NGOs with new restrictions. Groups associated with Indigenous, environmental, and human rights face increasing violence and criminalization of their work.

Several defenders have been forced to leave the country for fear of persecution, while lawyers defending human rights activists have been attacked and threatened. The Unit for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders in Guatemala (UDEFEGUA) registered 3,574 acts of aggression against human rights defenders in 2022, the highest number that the group had recorded in 22 years.

Guatemala is home to a vigorous labor movement, but workers are frequently denied the right to organize and face mass firings and blacklisting. Trade union members are also subject to intimidation and violence, particularly in rural areas. Labor laws obstruct union membership and impede strikes.

The judiciary is hobbled by corruption, inefficiency, and the intimidation of judges, prosecutors, and witnesses by outside actors and influential judicial figures. Those overseeing high-profile corruption and human rights cases have been removed, transferred, or prevented from taking their posts; some have been subjected to threats, faced criminal prosecution, or forced to leave the country. More than 40 judges, prosecutors, and former CICIG officials were reported to be in exile as of late 2023.

Attorney General Porras has repeatedly blocked high-profile corruption investigations and increasingly weaponized the justice system against prosecutors, lawyers, and judges involved in the fight against corruption. In one such case in August 2023, former CICIG representative Claudia González was arbitrarily arrested on spurious charges of “abuse of authority by a public servant” despite not having been a government employee during her time at CICIG; she was released on house arrest in November.

Corruption has also affected the process to select new Supreme Court and appellate court judges, which stalled in 2019. In November 2023, Congress hurriedly appointed new Supreme Court judges in a process that observers say was significantly flawed; at least three appointees had been investigated in relation to influence peddling during the nomination process.

Due process rights are guaranteed in the constitution, but those rights are inconsistently upheld, due in part to corruption in the judiciary and an ineffective police force in which many officers routinely violate the law and the rights of citizens. Access to justice remains difficult, especially for Indigenous people. Conviction rates are low.

Judges and prosecutors have reported facing threats and harassment, smear campaigns, and malicious criminal and disciplinary complaints in apparent retaliation for their work on sensitive cases related to corruption and human rights abuses.

High levels of violence, kidnappings, and extortion at the hands of the police, drug traffickers, and street gangs continue. Links between the state, politicians, the military, and illicit actors complicate a cohesive response to the country’s security challenges. The country’s homicide rate is persistently high. Prison facilities are grossly overcrowded and rife with gang- and drug-related violence and corruption.

Efforts to bring perpetrators of past human rights abuses to justice have been significantly hampered by intimidation campaigns against those involved in the process. In August 2023, a former military commander was sentenced to 20 years in prison for crimes against humanity in the 1982 Rancho Bejuco massacre. However, eight other military commissioners—who, witnesses testified, had engaged in such crimes—were acquitted.

Equal rights are guaranteed in the constitution, but minorities continue to face unequal treatment. Indigenous communities suffer from high rates of poverty, illiteracy, and infant mortality. Indigenous women are particularly marginalized.

LGBT+ people face discrimination, violence, and police abuse and are unprotected by legislation.

The constitution prohibits discrimination based on gender, but women continue to face gender-based inequality; women are usually paid less for their labor than men, and sexual harassment in the workplace is not penalized.

While there are no permanent restrictions on free movement, violence and the threat of violence by gangs and organized criminal groups inhibits this right in practice and has prompted the displacement of thousands of people. Movement is regularly restricted due to government-imposed states of siege and prevention.

Protections for property rights and economic freedom rarely extend beyond those with wealth and political connections. Land protections are especially limited for Indigenous people, particularly Indigenous women, despite a series of Constitutional Court rulings in 2020 that reinforced communal landholding rights in Indigenous communities. Evictions of Indigenous communities continued in 2023. A fact-finding mission by an independent delegation of international lawyers in March found that the government has failed to “prevent the unlawful use of force and violence” against Indigenous people and communities.

Business activity is hampered by criminal activity, including extortion and fraud. An inefficient state bureaucracy, rife with unclear and complicated regulations, also contributes to difficulties in establishing and operating a business.

Physical and sexual violence against women and children remains high, with perpetrators rarely facing prosecution.

The law permits abortion only when a pregnancy threatens the life of the woman. However, legal abortion care is difficult to access in practice.

Teenage pregnancy rates remain high, including among girls under the age of 15. Underage marriages are outlawed, but the law is not effectively enforced.

Indigenous peoples’ access to economic opportunities and socioeconomic mobility remains limited, with more than 70 percent of the population living in poverty. Income distribution is among the most unequal worldwide, with the wealthiest 10 percent of the population receiving nearly 50 percent of the total income nationally. Significant barriers to accessing education persist, particularly for girls, Indigenous children, and rural residents.

Child labor persists, especially among Indigenous children. Sexual exploitation particularly affects vulnerable groups including children, LGBT+ people, and Indigenous people. Gangs often force children and young men to join their organizations or perform work for them.