On Wednesday afternoon, the Guatemalan Supreme Court moved to allow Congress to investigate President Otto Perez Molina.
The probe against Perez, requested by an opposition party founded by Nobel peace laureate Rigoberta Menchu, was announced at a press conference by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Josue Baquiax.
The 13 members of the court studied a complaint from the Winaq party [don’t think Winaq capitalizes on this but who knows] to the effect Perez knew about illegal transactions committed by senior officials involved in fraud in the customs and social security systems, Baquiax said.
Now it is up to Congress to appoint an investigative commission, the chief justice said.
BINGO!!! |
Congress will form a five-member commission within the next few days. The commission will consider what links there are, if any, between Perez Molina and the La Linea and IGSS corruption scandals and whether his immunity from prosecution as a sitting president should be lifted as a result of those findings. Former Vice President Roxana Baldetti resigned one day after Congress formed a committee to determine her fate.
At best, so far, President Otto Perez Molina has just demonstrated to everyone what a bad manager he is – millions of dollars have been stolen right under his nose, allegedly by his former private secretary and his former vice president and her former private secretary. That seems just to be the tip of the iceberg of corruption.
However, the President is not a stupid man. It’s nearly impossible for him not to have been somewhat knowledgeable about what has been going on. I suspect (like most?) that he’s at the top. People like Perez Molina were the reason CICIG was established in the first place.
“The president only appointed two or three people” defense won’t cut it.