Taipei, Dec. 13 (CNA) Taiwan has expressed hope that Guatemala’s ongoing controversy over its newly elected leader will be resolved peacefully, days after prosecutors there tried to prevent President-elect Bernardo Arévalo from taking office next month.
Cheng Li-cheng (鄭力城), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ (MOFA) Department of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs, said Tuesday that Taiwan’s government was happy to see that Guatemala’s government said it respected the election results and had no intention of annulling them.
MOFA will continue to closely follow developments in Guatemala while hoping it can soon resolve the disputes “peacefully and via a democratic process” and have a “smooth government transition” on Jan. 14 next year when the new president is sworn in, Cheng said.
On Friday in Guatemala, one of only 13 countries in the world that formally recognize the Republic of China (Taiwan), prosecutors threatened to annul the victory of Arévalo, who is set to take office on Jan. 14 after a surprise victory in August.
After prosecutors sought to annul the election results amid accusations of an “attempted coup,” however, Guatemala’s electoral court insisted the results were “unchangeable.”
On Dec. 6, the current Guatemalan government also completed a handover procedure with the incoming administration’s members accompanied by representatives of the Organization of American States (OAS), Cheng said.
Meanwhile, when asked whether President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) or Vice President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) will attend Arévalo’s inauguration ceremony, Cheng sidestepped the question, saying only that the government will make an announcement in due time.
The timing complicates the issue, given that Taiwan is holding its presidential and legislative elections on Jan. 13, and Lai is one of the three candidates competing for the presidency.
Arévalo, a center-left anti-corruption politician and son of former Guatemala President Juan José Arévalo Bermejo, won his country’s presidential runoff in August by beating former first lady Sandra Torres Casanova by a 61-39 percent margin.
Since then, however, he has faced an onslaught of legal challenges, including moves to suspend his party in an attempt to stop him from taking over as the country’s president, which has led to on-and-off nationwide protests.
According to Cheng, Arévalo and his team reaffirmed during the campaign and after their victory that they had no intention of ending Guatemala’s diplomatic recognition of Taipei in favor of Beijing, though Arévalo did say he wanted better relations with China.
“We believe it is perfectly feasible to have good relations with both the (People’s) Republic of China and Taiwan,” Arévalo told Reuters during a post-victory interview in August.
Central America was once Taiwan’s staunchest base of diplomatic support, with all seven countries still recognizing the ROC as of 2006.
However, Costa Rica severed ties in 2007, followed by Panama, El Salvador, and Nicaragua in 2017, 2018 and 2021, respectively.
Following Honduras’ decision to cut ties with Taiwan in March 2023, Taiwan was left with only 13 diplomatic allies worldwide, with Guatemala and Belize the only countries in Central America still having diplomatic relations with Taipei.
