By Sofia Menchu and Diego Oré
GUATEMALA CITY, March 11 (Reuters) - Guatemala's opposition-controlled Congress elected new members to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) late Tuesday, part of a sweeping judicial overhaul that international observers warn risks being hijacked by corruption networks.
The appointment of five titular and five alternate magistrates for the 2026-2032 term is a pivotal step in a series of leadership changes across the country's top courts and the prosecutor's office.
The new TSE will oversee the 2027 general election to replace President Bernardo Arevalo, who won the presidency unexpectedly in 2023 on an anti-corruption agenda. He is barred from seeking re-election.
Arevalo, a social democrat, has framed these appointments as a chance to purge the justice system of corruption. However, his agenda has clashed with the recent selection of controversial figures to the Constitutional Court (CC), the nation's highest judicial authority.
Experts say the process is critical to restoring public trust, which has eroded since the 2019 shutdown of the UN-backed anti-impunity commission, CICIG.
"One of the biggest obstacles Guatemala faces is the co-optation of the judiciary... which has allowed organized crime and corruption networks to permeate," Ana Maria Mendez, Central America director at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), told Reuters.
Earlier this year, U.S. officials warned that the candidate lists for the TSE were vulnerable to influence from "criminal organizations and drug traffickers."
The stakes remain high as Arevalo prepares to select a new attorney general by May. Current chief Consuelo Porras, who has been sanctioned by the United States and the European Union for alleged corruption, is seeking a third term. Arevalo has described her bid for re-election as a "mockery of the Guatemalan people."
Porras in 2023 was at the center of what the U.S. and others claimed was an effort to prevent Arevalo from taking office.
A recent study by a local NGO found that over 93% of criminal cases in Guatemala failed to reach an effective resolution in the 2024-2025 period. Meanwhile, the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Margaret Satterthwaite, urged the government to bar any candidates facing credible allegations of human rights abuses or corruption.
The Constitutional Court has also faced scrutiny for rulings that paralyzed Arevalo's Movimiento Semilla party. Recent re-appointments to the court include Dina Ochoa and Roberto Molina, both of whom have faced criticism from international observers regarding their impartiality and past ties to political and military elites.
(Reporting by Sofia Menchu in Guatemala and Diego Ore in Mexico City; editing by David Gaffen)
