SANDRA TORRES

Protests by thousands of Guatemalans this week supporting President-elect Bernardo Arévalo suggest that the efforts by some officials to derail his presidency have awakened a new will among many citizens to defend democracy.

Guatemala's President-elect Bernardo Arévalo says he plans to call people into the streets next week to protest efforts to derail his presidency before he can take office.

Guatemala’s top electoral authority says that it has blocked the suspension of President-elect Bernardo Arévalo’s Seed Movement, at least temporarily giving the party back its legal status and cutting off an attempt by rials to weaken Arévalo.

Guatemala’s Congress, which is controlled in its majority by the governing party, has refused to recognize the seven lawmakers from the Seed Movement party of President-elect Bernardo Arévalo, following the suspension of his party earlier this week.

Guatemala's Aug. 20 presidential election has been bogged down in court and legal challenges despite the fact the results were clear: Progressive candidate Bernardo Arévalo won about 61% of the vote to conservative Sandra Torres' 39%.

Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei is calling for a democratic transition of power to anti-corruption campaigner and president-elect Bernardo Arévalo and his party Seed Movement, which have faced waves of legal attacks in attempts to block his rise to power.

Bernardo Arévalo’s experience in peacebuilding and diplomacy eminently qualify him to lead Guatemala as the conflict-riven country’s next president, those who know him say.

Guatemalans overwhelmingly picked an independent, anti-corruption progressive to be the country’s next president but his opponent remained silent Monday, leaving open the possibility of a challenge to landslide results that rejected the country’s elite.

Outsider Bernardo Arévalo appeared to be the “virtual winner” of Sunday’s election to be Guatemala’s next president after voters became angry at widespread corruption and leaders’ failure to tackle it.

Over the past decade, Guatemalan presidential candidate Sandra Torres has been drifting rightward on the political spectrum as she repeatedly has tried to win the presidency.

Presidential candidate Bernardo Arévalo won just 11% of the vote in Guatemala's presidential election’s first round June 25.

Central America is experiencing a wave of unrest that is remarkable even for a region whose history is riddled with turbulence.

The Guatemalan government’s clumsy interference with its presidential election has turned a global spotlight on a country whose struggles with deep corruption previously received little international notice.

Guatemala sank deeper into political turmoil as prosecutors targeted a progressive presidential candidate who proved to be surprisingly popular.

Guatemala’s troubled presidential election has been thrown into even greater turmoil after the country’s top electoral tribunal confirmed the results of the June 25 vote while the Attorney General’s Office announced that the second place party had been suspended.

The struggle to certify the results of Guatemala's first-round presidential elections has suffered another setback, after the chief justice of the Supreme Court issued an order blocking the certification.

A week after Guatemala’s June 25 elections boosted a relative long-shot candidate into the final second round of voting, the country’s top court has frozen certification of the election results.

Guatemala’s highest court has suspended the releasing of official results, granting a temporary injunction to 10 parties that challenged the results of the June 25 election.

Bernardo Arévalo, the surprise of the first round of voting in Guatemala, says the choice in the Aug. 20 presidential runoff is a clear one: Continue living under a corrupt system with his rival or rebuild the country’s democracy with him.

Guatemalans have sent two presidential candidates from opposite sides of the political spectrum to an Aug. 20 runoff, giving hope to many disenchanted voters that change may be possible.

Just days away from electing a new president, many Guatemalans remain undecided, unimpressed by the leading candidates and even considering casting a protest vote to express their disapproval.

With the departure of the United Nations-backed anti-corruption commission last year that supported a war against some of the countrys most powerful political, business and criminal leaders, Guatemalas pursuers have become the pursued. The U.N.-sponsored International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala left the country in September, after then-President Jimmy Morales decided not to renew its mandate. Both prosecutors are in the United States, which is also where Guatemalas former Attorney General Thelma Aldana went after leading Guatemala's anti-corruption fight. It is a clear attempt by criminal and corrupt networks to take control of the justice system to obtain impunity and protection for themselves," she said. With the justice system under attack from outside forces and from within, President Alejandro Giammattei has remained on the sidelines even though its his party that controls Congress.

(CNN) - Donald Trump would be wise to watch Guatemala's run-off presidential election this weekend closely. This means Guatemala's next president may find themselves on the receiving end of immense pressure from the US president and his administration. Guatemala's next president will be tasked with overseeing the final implementation of a controversial agreement reached between Trump and his Guatemalan counterpart, outgoing President Jimmy Morales, in late July. Between 2008 and 2012, she served as Guatemala's first lady during the presidency of her husband, Alvaro Colom. He has described the outgoing Morales as irresponsible, but has not ruled out the asylum deal himself.