Elected in August 2023, Bernardo Arevalo will be sworn this month as president of Guatemala amid rumors that coupmongers could stop him from taking office. Why is Arevalo facing such opposition and what will be his challenges if he takes power? Join us in a conversation with Guatemalan journalist Claudia Méndez Arriaza; Daniel Haering Keenan, leader of the Anticorruption Project; Thelma Aldana, former attorney general of Guatemala; and Andrea Ixchíu Hernández, journalist, filmmaker and land protector.

Date: January 24, at 1-2:30pm

Claudia Méndez Arriaza is a journalist with 25 years of experience covering politics and justice in Guatemala. Today she hosts and coordinates the production of contents in ConCriterio, a daily analysis and debate radio morning show. Her coverage of the electoral process in 2023 has been published in Americas Quarterly magazine. She has founded three informative and leading media outlets and also worked during 15 years as an investigative reporter and editor for elPeriodico. She is part of the Nieman Class of 2012 at Harvard University. She is the Spanish translator of “The Art of Political Murder” by Francisco Goldman (Grove Press/Anagrama 2009) and “Guatemala: Eternal Spring Eternal Tyranny (JMS 2010). 

Daniel Haering Keenan is a co-founder, senior researcher, former president, and leader of the Anti-Corruption Project at Asociación Diálogos Guatemala. He has extensive experience in public policy research and university-level teaching. He served as the national commissioner of the Presidential Commission for the Reform of Drug Policy in Guatemala from 2012 to 2014. Former director of the Ibn Khaldun International Institute for Research in Political Studies and International Relations. Former academic director at the School of Government. Over eleven years as a political analyst and commentator on public policies in television, radio, digital, and print media. Currently, he hosts the Tan/Gente podcast. 

Thelma Aldana is former attorney general of Guatemala.  She received her law degree in 1982 from the University of San Carlos in Quetzaltenango.  She also has a Master’s degree in Civil and Procedural Law.  She started her professional career in 1981 in Family Court in Quetzaltenango.  In 1999, she was appointed as a judge in a court of appeals.  In 2009 she became a magistrate in the Supreme Court of Guatemala and served as the president of the Supreme Court during 2011-2012.  In 2014, she succeeded Claudia Paz y Paz as Guatemala’s attorney general. 

Andrea Ixchíu Hernández is a Maya K’iche’ woman, journalist, filmmaker and land protector.  She is coordinator at Hackeo Cultural, an initiative and community communication methodology for the construction of collective narratives for the defense of Indigenous territory.  She is a Consultant at Culture Hack Labs, an international not-for-profit consultancy that supports organizations, social movements and activists to create cultural change.  She has served as an Indigenous community government authority in Totonicapán, Guatemala, taking on responsibilities to better her community. Andrea is a 2014 Nobel Women’s Fellow, 2016 Sakharov Fellow, 2020 Bertha Fellow, 2021 Ford Global Fellow and 2022 Christensen Fellow.  She develops communication strategies, narratives and technologies for the defense of life and territory with Indigenous communities throughout Latin America and international spaces.