The 72 hours in which Manuel Baldizón lost his candidacy for deputy in Guatemala

Archive image of Manuel Baldizón, during the 2015 Guatemalan presidential elections. Moises Castillo (AP)

One of those accused of receiving bribes from Odebrecht in Guatemala, Manuel Baldizón, wants to return to the political arena.

Convicted of money laundering in the United States, a crime for which he served more than three years in prison, and despite the fact that in his country he faces two criminal proceedings for the scandal involving the Brazilian construction company and for the so-called Transurbano case, the politician wanted to run for deputy in the general elections in June.

But, after three days of strong questioning about his candidacy, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) left him on Tuesday night without a candidacy.

Now it will be the Guatemalan Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ), a court that allegedly swore allegiance to Baldizón, who must review the TSE's decision.

Until last March 11, Baldizón retained the endorsement of the TSE to run for deputy for Cambio, a group made up of his two young sons, Jorge and Manuel.

In the three days following the decision of the electoral authority, the questions regarding the candidacy of the politician intensified, whom they do not consider suitable for having been convicted of money laundering in the United States and because in Guatemala he faces two criminal proceedings.

One of them has to do with the $1.3 million dollars in bribes that he allegedly received from the Odebrecht construction company when he was chairman of the Congressional Finance Committee.

One of Baldizón's lawyers, Saúl Zenteno, said that the Cambio party lawyers are preparing an amparo that they will present to the CSJ and that he be allowed to participate.

The decision on the nomination thus falls on a body whose magistrates allegedly swore allegiance to him, as he himself confessed in a letter he sent to the extinct International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) in 2018, while he was serving a sentence in the United States.

According to the note, on the morning of September 25, 2014, the presidential candidates of the Patriot Party (PP) Alejandro Sinibaldi and Baldizón, of the Lider, met in a hotel in the Guatemalan capital with the magistrates who hours later were going to be elected by The congress.

In those days, both politicians were emerging as the candidates with the best chances of reaching the presidency.

The Odebretcht case also unites Alejandro Sinibaldi and Manuel Baldizón.

According to investigations by the MP and CICIG, when the former was serving as Minister of Communications, he received US$9.3 million in bribes from the Brazilian construction company.

Both former presidential candidates are on the US State Department's Engel list that identifies individuals who undermine democracy in Guatemala.

“For this meeting, a presidential suite was adapted, the largest in that hotel,” Baldizón told CICIG.

He also said that there were about 20 people at the meeting, among them the thirteen magistrates who would be elected.

"Alejandro Sinibaldi takes the floor and basically it was about a consensus that was made among all if any situation arose that would remind who had put them," the Baldizón manuscript cites.

Among those present at the meeting were, according to the CICIG, Ranulfo Rojas, a former magistrate and now a member of the TSE, and Néster Vásquez Pimentel, current magistrate of the Constitutional Court (CC).

The other magistrates elected for the 2014-2019 period and who supposedly also participated in the meeting continue in office, since Congress has not chosen their successors.

The spokesman for the Judiciary did not attend the query to find out whether or not the magistrates will withdraw from the discussion around Baldizón's candidacy.

parallel commissions

The magistrates of the CSJ are elected by Congress from a list that selects a commission made up of professionals, academics and second degree judges.

This process was distorted by the influence of political operators who sought to seek impunity, according to several investigations by the MP and CICIG, known as Parallel Commissions.

The members of the Special Prosecutor's Office Against Impunity (FECI) who prosecuted these cases under the leadership of Juan Francisco Sandoval are now criminalized, based on the accusations of several of the accused.

The CICIG sought to follow up on Baldizón's revelation, which he wrote while serving a sentence in the United States and which reaches the magistrates of justice.

When President Jimmy Morales announced the end of the mandate of that commission, in January 2019, Baldizón stopped speaking with them and his testimony of the loyalty oath of the magistrates remained as one of the more than 60 complaints that the Public Ministry had to attend to. by Consuelo Porras.

Baldizón's attempt to return to the political arena comes after he announced his retirement at the end of 2016 after finishing third in the 2015 presidential election with the Libertad Democrática Renovada (Lider) party.

Three years later, the Public Ministry (MP) and CICIG singled out Baldizón for receiving US$1.3 million in bribes from Odebrecht and a court authorized his capture.

By then, Baldizón was no longer in Guatemala.

On January 20, 2018, he was arrested at a Miami airport, in the United States, on charges of money laundering.

Months later, he pleaded guilty to "accepting campaign contributions knowing that they were given by traffickers and that they were drug proceeds."

The Southern District Court sentenced him to 50 months in prison.

His sentence should have ended in December of this year, but a cooperation agreement with the United States allowed him to return to Guatemala in October 2022, in time for the general elections next June.

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