Part I explores how and why efforts to tilt the playing field in favor of the governing party instead opened the door for Arévalo’s unexpected electoral victory. It also looks at the implications of what happened in Guatemala for regional efforts to curb the corruption that is undermining democratic governance, driving massive irregular migration and empowering organized criminal networks. This series examines how Guatemalan individuals, institutions, ancestral Indigenous leaders and civil society - plus the foreign governments and multilateral organizations that supported them - have thus far outplayed their autocratic, corrupt adversaries. security, often to a greater extent than better known geopolitical hotspots. Corruption, instability and conflict in Guatemala and its Central American neighbors directly affects U.S. borders and a transit country for migrants crossing from South into North America, as well as a route for illicit drugs. It has long been a major source of irregular migration to U.S. It has the biggest population and the largest economy in Central America. Guatemala is particularly important from Washington’s perspective because internal developments there touch on a broad range of U.S. A new USIP essay series by Ambassador Stephen McFarland explores how Guatemalan citizens - assisted by the international community - generated an unexpected and potentially historic opportunity to move past previous cycles of violence and conflict. Guatemala appears to suffer from a particularly entrenched dynamic of corruption, social conflict and criminal violence, which has left the country struggling to progress, even after the formal end of the brutal civil war of the 1980s. While the sources of violence vary widely, from gang activity and organized crime to unresolved civil conflicts to weak judicial institutions, a common thread across the region is the absence of viable mechanisms for reducing violence and social conflict. Although Latin America has no ongoing interstate conflicts, it is home to 42 of the 50 most dangerous cities in the world. What comes next matters not just for Guatemala but also for regional and U.S.

Arevalo could become the country’s first progressive leader in four decades.

Supporters of presidential candidate Bernardo Arévalo gathered in Guatemala City, on July 13, 2023. The kleptocracy pushed back hard, using their control of the public prosecutors’ office to open spurious investigations and pursue unsupported claims of electoral fraud. Success was - and remains - far from inevitable. Despite a playing field tilted to favor the governing elite, voters elected Bernardo Arévalo, whose Semilla (“Seed”) Movement promised to break the country’s cycles of corruption, restoring democracy and the rule of law. Guatemala’s 2023 elections were a turning point for the country.

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