Guatemalan President Otto Perez Stripped Of Immunity, Opening Possibility For Prosecution In Corruption Scandal

Otto Perez Molina founded Guatemala’s Patriot Party with a tough-on-crime platform in 2001, and went on to become the country’s president. Now the former military general is facing possible criminal charges after Congress voted to strip him of presidential immunity on Tuesday. The vote comes after Perez’s recent address in which he declared that he would not resign the presidency, despite the fact that his Vice-President is currently behind bars, Guatemala’s attorney general has recommended he step down and 70,000 Guatemalans took to the streets calling for his removal.

The Otto Perez political crisis is expected to help opposition parties in elections on September 6th. Former VP Roxana Baldetti was denied bail at the opening over her trial in the corruption scandal, in which prosecutors allege that she, her secretary and others used their positions to pocket import tax funds. Former presidential candidate, Nobel Peace Prize winner and leftist organizer Rigoberta Menchú Tum welcomed the decision on her Twitter account calling Otto Perez’s actions an “illicit relationship” with an “illegal network.”

Otto Perez's Twitter account, meanwhile, was silent, as was that of the Patriot Party, who over the past week has retweeted a summer post titled "Campaign Closure."