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Guatemala 2023 General Election

Bernardo Arevalo of Movimiento Semilla, who had placed second in the 25 June first round on 11.74 per cent of votes cast, won the 20 August run-off with 2,442,718 votes, 60.91 per cent of valid votes, against Sandra Torres of Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza on 39.09 per cent. What the international observation missions documented was a dispute driven by state bodies rather than by voters: presidential and vice-presidential candidacies were excluded before the first round, the Constitutional Court ordered a repetition of the departmental tabulation that the election law does not provide for, a criminal judge ordered the suspension of the winning party's legal personality during the electoral period, and the Public Ministry raided the Supreme Electoral Tribunal repeatedly and seized the tally sheets of all five elections. The Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court and the Tribunal itself held the calendar in place, the ordered review confirmed the count, the Public Ministry's 8 December request to have the elections declared null did not take effect, and the transfer of power took place on 14 January 2024. International IDEA records that Congress stripped four of the five magistrates who ran the election of their immunity on 30 November 2023 and that a judge barred them from office in March 2024. They returned to office under a provisional Supreme Court amparo on 28 November 2025, the criminal case against them over the purchase of the preliminary results system was suspended on 20 February 2026, and their term ended in March 2026. Movimiento Semilla was cancelled on a criminal court's order that the Constitutional Court upheld on 26 March 2026; the new Tribunal stated on 10 April 2026 that the 2023 results cannot be modified and that the cancellation does not affect the offices won. In May 2026 a new Attorney General placed the prosecutors' unit that had led the election cases in liquidation, and in August 2026 the Public Ministry told the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that its earlier actions had been aimed at questioning the 2023 results and the legitimacy of the elected government.