The lessons from Guatemala echo loudly: even if free and fair elections are held, a transition of power is not a straightforward process. The international community’s role in facilitating an effective transition in Venezuela becomes paramount.

The actions by the Permanent Council and the Secretary General demonstrate the continuing validity of the OAS and its Democratic Charter as the principal instruments for the defense of democracy in the Americas. They also confirm the collective commitment to ensuring electoral integrity in Member States through electoral observation missions (EOM).

La aplastante victoria de Bernardo Arévalo en la segunda vuelta de las recientes elecciones presidenciales de Guatemala ha sido la más clara señal de rechazo del pueblo guatemalteco hacia la actual clase política.

Guatemala’s 2023 electoral process will most likely dodge a bullet, and the presidential runoff election between Bernardo Arévalo of SEMILLA (Movimiento Semilla) and Sandra Torres of UNE (Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza) will take place on August 20, 2023. The runoff campaign itself will be highly polarized, and in the broader picture, there are huge challenges ahead for governability in the short-run and for Guatemala’s democracy in the long-run.

When Guatemalans went to the polls on election day on June 25, 2023, the electoral process itself had been questioned nationally and internationally because of the exclusion of three presidential candidates… However, turnout was not the biggest surprise on election day. More remarkable were the choices made by Guatemalan voters, which stunned the Guatemalan political establishment as well as domestic and international observers.

According to Shenai, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala are entangled in a governance trap, which he defines as “a path-dependent equilibrium in which weak states with contested authority fail to penetrate civil society and achieve self-sustaining economic growth