The beginning of the democratic spring in Guatemala is, for now, blocked. Bernardo Arévalo has only been in power for five weeks, after overcoming the suffocating siege of the Corrupt Pact.

He waved the flag of the “new democratic spring,” a romantic but suggestive evocation that finally summoned intergenerational support in the cities and the countryside. The dispute over the rule of law is the mother of the battles of democracy, writes Gutiérrez.