I argued a few months ago that the new FCN government would probably start the new congress with double the number of candidates that it had elected in September and that the new government would probably draw heavily on the Patriotic Party and others who had served in previous governments to fill out its administration.
My timing was off on transfuguismo. It took until a few days ago for Jimmy Morales’ FCN to go from 11 to 28 deputies. There are eight from Líder, one from the PP, one from the narco UCN, three from Todos, and two from UNE. I’m not sure who the last two are. Opposition parties claim that the deputies switched parties after receiving payments or promises from the FCN. Several of them are who we feared that the FCN would align themselves with – men connected to murder and drug trafficking. The FCN itself and its allies is why I (and many others) do not believe that positive change for Guatemala will come from within the FCN and Morales government.
So the FCN in Congress doesn’t look so good. What about Morales’ cabinet? The Inter-American Dialogue’s Latin America Advisor asked that question this week and, surprisingly, the analysts are rather optimistic. While he was slow in putting the cabinet together, they are impressed with the selection process and with some of the appointments drawn from the private sector. One analyst pushed backed against the idea that Morales ran on an anti-establishment campaign. He ran on an anti-corruption campaign and therefore should not be criticized for pulling cabinet members from “the establishment.”
But can you pursue an anti-corruption agenda while still relying so heavily on the establishment?
