Guatemalan businessman and communicator Dionisio Gutiérrez met in Washington, DC with Venezuelan writer and former editor in chief of Foreign Policy magazine, Moisés Naím, to talk about political changes in Latin America, due to the super-cycle of elections that the region experiments.
Dionisio Gutiérrez began the meeting approaching the turn that Latin America is taking towards rightist politics for the last few years. He underlined that “since the arrival of Mauricio Macri to power, in 2015, and the success of Lava Jato Operation in Brazil in 2016; populist projects of XXI Century socialism seem to crumble”. In such sense, for Naim, the main threat in Latin America is continuity: “We must fight against populist governments, but it is also important to avoid the persistence of a government beyond what the constitution establishes”.
Later, they discussed about the increasing growth of organized crime in Latin American politics. Gutiérrez stated that such phenomenon “captured institutions and even complete States. Guatemala is an example of the infiltration of organized crime in the region”. Likewise, Naím mentioned that “Mafia states are a trend that began a few years ago” and explained that “now it is clear how the government of a country is a criminal organization. What we have today are governments that instead of dismantle criminal networks, they control and possess them”.
Next, they spoke about CICIG in Guatemala. Gutiérrez indicated that it “had good results in 2015 when it uncovered the government of Otto Pérez Molina, but after that, there has been a weakening process. It created many expectations that were not met. Even though the balance is positive, there is a division in society regarding the fight against corruption”.
Finally, Naím added that “CICIG -at its moment- had relevant achievements for the country, and then became weak, distorted, lost virtue, and deserves to be rethought. A country cannot transfer its system of justice to international organizations”. Gutiérrez concluded the meeting mentioning that “in Guatemala, the problem is that the same government and some groups of society, are trying to sabotage any attempt to fight against corruption, which makes the view for the future quite pessimistic”.
Gutiérrez made the most out of the visit to interview Moisés Naím in the Razón de Estado TV show.
