Guatemala’s Congress rejects state of calamity imposed by the president

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Guatemalan Congress rejected this Monday the state of calamity imposed last September 2 by the president of the country, Alejandro Giammattei, to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2.

With 81 votes in favor, the Legislative Body rejected and left without effect the Governmental Decree 8-2021 ordered by Giammattei, which stipulated a state of calamity for 30 days and a curfew from 8 pm to 4 am.

Read also: Check out our coverage on Guatemala

The measure had been dictated by the President, after a Council of Ministers, too, according to the ruler, seek to avoid the expansion of covid-19, which has attacked the country with force in the last months.

However, the opposition in Congress joined forces to obtain the 81 votes necessary to repeal the measure, criticized because it allows the government to make state purchases with greater freedom, which, according to experts, is used to commit illegalities.

The president of the Congress, Allan Rodríguez, was also the object of reproaches in a frenetic and marathon parliamentary session since he kept the vote to approve the state of calamity for more than 50 minutes, in search of collecting the necessary suffrages.

Rodríguez, from the political group Vamos, which brought Giammattei to power in 2020, finally had to close the vote, especially in the face of complaints from the opposition legislator, Aldo Dávila, who labeled him as “corrupt” and of negotiating suffrages in exchange for perks.

The rejection by Congress of the state of calamity is the second in two months, since last August 23 an identical governmental agreement presented by the Giammattei government was also denied.

According to Guatemalan law, the state of calamity establishes the possibility of limiting the free movement of the population, preventing concentrations of people, and suspending meetings, among other measures.

The Giammattei government had already successfully established a state of prevention in July with the same purpose of preventing the spread of covid-19.

Guatemala has 488,538 positive cases of coronavirus and 12,315 deaths due to the disease. Both figures are the highest in Central America.

The country presided over by Giammattei has a hospital occupancy rate of 97 percent in serious patients and 305 of the 340 municipalities that make up the territory are at the highest alert level due to contagions, especially for the delta variant.