investigations and prosecutions should not be minimized, the CICIG and Guatemalan prosecutors’ major success was uncovering wide-scale corruption within several state institutions in 2015, including a multimillion-dollar scheme operating out of the customs authority. Nationwide protests and judicial investigations led to the resignations and arrests of the country’s president, vice president and several high-ranking officials. International support for the Guatemalan people and prosecutors were essential to the removal and arrest of such powerful figures.

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Citizen disenchantment with status quo politicians subsequently led to the 2015 election of Jimmy Morales of the National Convergence Front, a political party formed by former military officials tied to the country’s counterinsurgency project of the 1970s and 1980s. While Morales was a comedian turned politician who campaigned as “not corrupt, nor a thief,” Attorneythe maximum penalty for campaign finance crimes to 10 years and allow criminals who face sentences of 10 years or less to pay a fine rather than serve prison time. The Guatemalan people rejected this “pact of impunity” by the country’s politicians and, once again, the Constitutional Court blocked Congress.

In recent weeks, however, Guatemala’s president and congress have again sought to undermine the rule of law and democracy. On Jan. 13, the same Congress that had sought to rein in the attorney general and CICIG elected its new leadership, composed of congressmen already under investigation on corruption charges and presided over by the son of Guatemala City Mayor Álvaro Arzú Irigoyen, a powerful man also under investigation. Morales followed suit by naming as his economic minister a man