Guatemala, July 20, 2011. The presidential forum "Transparency and the fight against corruption" was held with the participation of six of the ten invited candidates. The candidates expressed their commitment to implementing measures to make public expenditure more transparent and to working to strengthen the integrity of State institutions.
The aim of the activity was to strengthen democracy and allow the public to hear the proposals of presidential candidates on how they would tackle corruption and increase the transparency of their work if they were to be elected.
The event was organized by the Centre of Guatemalan Studies, the Institute for Comparative Studies in Criminal Sciences and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. CICIG was also present.
The candidates that attended the activity were: Manuel Baldizón of the party Libertad Democrática (Líder); Harold Caballeros of Encuentro por Guatemala and Visión con Valores (VIVA-EG); Juan Gutiérrez of Partido de Avanzada Nacional (PAN); Rigoberta Menchú of Frente Amplio de Izquierda; Eduardo Suger of Compromiso, Renovación y Orden (CREO); and Adela de Torrebiarte of Acción para el Desarrollo Nacional (ADN).
The moderator of the event was Mexican journalist Blanche Petrich Moreno, who, over four rounds, asked the candidates the following questions:
- What measures have you promote to increase transparency and to tackle corruption?
- Why has the legislative branch failed to pass the Anticorruption Law if your political party heard the bill in Congress?
- What mechanisms do you propose to increase the transparency and quality of public spending?
- What mechanisms would you develop to implement agreements on human rights, corruption and organized crime?
- How will you guarantee the transparency of spending in your electoral campaign?
- Conclusions of each of the candidates on the above topics.
Some candidates expressed support for the work of CICIG, stating that it has applied its knowledge to help solve murder and corruption cases in the justice system. Therefore, they confirmed that they would support the Commission if elected.
They also indicated their support for implementing public policies to make the work of Government institutions more transparent and efficient. Other candidates pledged to create commissions and secretariats to tackle corruption and thereby oversee spending in State offices and in NGOs which are contracted to administer State funds.
Most of the presidential candidates offered assurances that they would pass the Anticorruption Law and implement other legislative reforms to purge institutions such as the Comptroller General's Office and the Judiciary (OJ), arguing that such institutions mark the source of corruption due to their politicisation.
The candidates concluded that regardless of who became the next President of the Republic work must be done to recover rule of law and to promote short-term measures to guarantee transparency in State offices.
The Republic of Guatemala, a mountainous country that lies in the Central American isthmus, has an estimated population of 13 million people.
