By Sofia Menchu
GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – The head of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, said he would visit Guatemala on Monday, following escalating concerns over the country’s presidential vote scheduled for August.
Speaking at an OAS session on the situation in the Central American country, Almagro added he had been invited by Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei.
The visit will take place after a Guatemalan court this month suspended the center-left Semilla party, whose candidate Bernardo Arevalo had won second place in a first-round vote in June.
An OAS mission that observed the election had backed those results, and the OAS criticized moves by Guatemalan authorities to suspend the process, saying they hurt candidates’ campaigns and citizens’ ability to cast an informed vote.
Almagro said he would ask to meet with the candidates who are slated to face off on Aug. 20.
“Obviously, we wanted to visit Guatemala as soon as possible,” he said.
Also in the OAS session, Margarette May Macaulay, a commissioner from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), urged Guatemala’s government to not interfere.
“The 2023 elections are taking place in a context of worsening freedom of expression,” she said.
Irma Palencia, the head of Guatemala’s electoral court, said she has asked the OAS to continue monitoring the election process.
(Reporting by Sofia Menchu; Writing by Sarah Morland; Editing by Daina Beth Solomon and Jonathan Oatis)
