Guatemala’s controversial attorney general has started a second term, but Maria Consuelo Porras‘ last-minute reappointment this week has sparked widespread condemnation and new sanctions amid alarm over backsliding on the rule of law. President Alejandro Giammattei swore in Porras for another four-year period on Monday, despite critics who accuse her of playing a role in dismantling anti-corruption efforts and judicial independence, including through the “persecution” of key anti-impunity prosecutors and judges. “We are entering an authoritarian period in Guatemala,” said Edie Cux, legal director of Accion Ciudadana, the Guatemalan chapter of Transparency International, a global anti-corruption NGO. “It generates not only a crisis of the justice system but also a crisis in general in the country,” he told Al Jazeera.
The United States announced new repercussions just hours after the swearing-in ceremony, barring both Porras and her husband from entering the US. Washington suspended aid to her office last year, as well. The Department of State had already placed Porras on a separate list of Corrupt and Undemocratic Actors last year after she summarily fired Juan Francisco Sandoval, the renowned Special Anti-Impunity Prosecutor at the helm of high-profile investigations into high-level corruption. Sandoval held a news conference immediately after he was removed in July 2021, accusing Porras of obstructing investigations into corruption among governing party officials and their allies. He fled the country that same night and remains in exile in the US.
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