Brian Nichols, the top State Department official for the Western Hemisphere, said on Twitter that the United States government was “deeply concerned” by what he described as Mr. Curruchiche’s “threats to Guatemala’s electoral democracy.” “Institutions must respect the will of voters,” Mr. Nichols added.
Mr. Arévalo’s party, called Semilla, or Seed, filed a motion with Guatemala’s top constitutional court appealing the ruling, setting the stage for a legal battle.
“We have never done anything illegal,” Samuel Pérez, who represents Semilla as a deputy in Congress, told reporters outside the constitutional court around midnight Wednesday. “What they are trying to do is to forge a case, as we had warned, to try to bring down the party or the candidacy of Bernardo Arévalo.”
Mr. Curruchiche, who leads the special prosecutor’s office against impunity, said the case against Semilla involved claims that it used more than 5,000 fraudulent signatures to qualify as a political party. After his office looked into it, a criminal judge ordered the suspension of the party’s registration, which could effectively ban it, and Mr. Arévalo, from competing in the runoff.
On Thursday, Mr. Curruchiche’s office raided and seized evidence at a government building that held documents filed by Semilla.
Legal experts questioned the move by Mr. Curruchiche, an ally of the outgoing president, Alejandro Giammattei. An independent watchdog group, Mirador Electoral, warned in a statement that the suspension “attempts to consummate an electoral coup equivalent to a coup d’état.”
Edgar Ortiz Romero, a constitutional law expert, said the move was “absolutely illegal” since only the electoral tribunal, not a criminal judge, can suspend a party’s registration under Guatemalan election laws.