(From left) Guatemalan deputies Gloria Sanchez, Jorge Barrios Fiallos, Mario Linares, Nineth Montenegro and Sergio Celis, the five members of an investigative committee launched by the Congress to consider revoking President Otto Perez’s immunity, hold a meeting at the Congress building in Guatemala City.

 

AFP/Guatemala City


Tens of thousands of Guatemalans took to the streets to demand the resignation of President Otto Perez, who has refused to quit in the face of accusations by his attorney general that he was involved in a lucrative customs racket.
Carrying banners proclaiming, “Guatemala has no president,” demonstrators staged marches from the capital to the regions while businesses ranging from McDonald’s restaurants to brewery Cerveceria Centro Americana closed in support of the protest.
“It can’t be that he looks the other way and ignores the fact the people don’t want him any more,” one marcher, publicist Felipe Flores, 25, said of Perez.
Perez, a 64-year-old retired general, reiterated that he would not resign and pledged instead to submit to the legal process against him, which has engulfed the country in crisis just days before presidential elections due on Sept 6.
The Supreme Court of Guatemala this week accepted Attorney General Thelma Aldana’s request to impeach Perez, but it must still pass Congress to be successful.
Perez has already survived one attempt by Congress to strip him of his presidential immunity as a two-thirds majority is required for the decision to go against him.
Congress has named a five-strong panel to decide if there is enough evidence to warrant prosecuting Perez.
Pressure for him to resign is mounting, but if he does, he may suffer the same fate as former Vice President Roxana Baldetti, who was arrested last week for her alleged part in the customs fraud enveloping Perez, which is known as La Linea.
While saying he planned to stay on, the president conceded to Guatemalan radio that resignation was an option.

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