“I AM completely calm,” declared Otto Pérez Molina, stoutly, at a press conference on August 31st. He was referring to the corruption allegations he faced. By the next evening, he had much less reason to be sanguine, because the country’s lawmakers voted to end his immunity from prosecution. Hours later, he was barred from leaving the country; then an arrest warrant was issued, and he resigned.
Mr Pérez becomes the first leader of Guatemala to be forced out of office and made to face legal proceedings because of sleaze. For anti-corruption campaigners throughout Latin America, the news was a rare and sweet breakthrough for the principle that holders of high office must be held to account like everybody else. In Guatemala, a land which is still riven by social divisions and demands for justice after a long civil war which ended in 1996, street protesters cheered enthusiastically.
The president stands accused of involvement in “La Línea”, a scheme named after the hotline it used, in which customs officials are alleged to have accepted kickbacks in exchange for reducing the import duties companies were required to pay.
Allegations linking the president to La Línea are not new. Congressmen had already voted once before on removing Mr Pérez’s immunity, but supporters of the move did not reach the two-thirds threshold required by the constitution. On...
from The Economist: The Americas http://ift.tt/1OcyOpl
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