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Guatemala’s attorney-general, who new President Bernardo Arevalo accuses of involvement in a plot to undo his election, snubbed a meeting with the head of state Wednesday and said she refused to resign. Consuelo Porras along with senior prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche and Judge Fredy Orellana were at the forefront of judicial efforts to stop reformist Arevalo taking office.
All three are listed as corrupt and undemocratic by the US government, and Arevalo had said one of his first actions as president would be to ask Porras to resign. Former lawmaker, diplomat and sociologist Arevalo, 65, pulled off a major upset when he swept from obscurity to win elections last August, firing up voters weary of graft in one of Latin America’s poorest nations.
His anti-corruption crusade put him in the crosshairs of prosecutors accused of graft and closely aligned with the country’s entrenched political and economic ruling class. They tried to overturn the election results and strip Arevalo, who enjoys strong support from the international community, of immunity from prosecution.
His Semilla (Seed) party also had its registration suspended on fraud allegations widely seen as trumped-up. Arevalo has repeatedly denounced a “slow-motion coup d’etat.”
He took office on January 15 in a ceremony which had been held up for nine hours by bickering in Congress in what was seen as part of a last-ditch effort to stop his ascension.
On Wednesday, Porras insisted in a video posted on social media that she fully intended to “fulfill the constitutional mandate of four years… and consequently I will not resign.” Arevalo had sent Porras a letter three days after his inauguration inviting her to a meeting where he was widely expected to ask her to step down.
Porras, 70, was appointed in 2018 by then President Jimmy Morales and to a second four-year term by his successor Alejandro Giammattei in 2022. In the video, Porras insisted the public prosecutor’s office was an “autonomous and independent institution” and did not answer to the government.
