In this election, some candidates lost before a single vote was cast

A Guatemalan judge walked into a meeting at the US embassy last spring and pulled out a large amount of cash: the money, she said, was a bribe from one of the president’s closest allies.

The judge, Blanca Alfaro, helps lead the authority overseeing the country’s elections. She claimed the money was given to her to gain influence over the election office, according to a US official briefed on the meeting and a person who attended and asked for anonymity to discuss details of a private meeting.

American diplomats were shocked by the brutality of the episode, but not by the allegations. In the volatile political climate that consumed Guatemala ahead of Sunday’s presidential election, there was one constant: a steady drumbeat of attacks on democratic institutions by those in power.

In a country that has moved from being a rallying point for stamping out corruption to one where dozens of anti-corruption officials have been forced into exile, the first round of voting will be as much about who doesn’t get on the ballot as who does.

The country’s electoral bureau has disqualified any serious candidate in the race who could challenge the status quo, epitomized by President Alejandro Giammattei, a conservative who critics say has pushed the country towards autocracy and who should not be allowed to run for office. a new term.

The other frontrunners are people associated with part of the political or economic elite. Next to their names on the ballot paper will be several blank boxes, representing four candidates who have been excluded from the process by the electoral authority.

Judge Alfaro told U.S. officials she had received a bribe from Miguel Martínez, a close confidant of Mr Giammattei and a key official in his party, said the person who attended the meeting and the US official.

She said the money she was carrying was 50,000 Guatemalan quetzales (the equivalent of more than $6,000), according to the person present.

The Times has not substantiated Judge Alfaro’s claim that she was bribed. In an interview, Ms Alfaro denied going to the embassy and making the allegation.

“I have no relationship with Miguel Martínez,” she told The New York Times. “I doubt 50,000 quetzales can be brought into the embassy because you go through so many security measures.”

Mr Martínez denied bribing Judge Alfaro and said he had never met her. He said he was aware of an attempt by people who could not participate in the election “to put me in a legal situation” at the US embassy.

“Now we realize that this is the legal situation they are trying to implicate me in,” said Mr Martínez, “to influence the electoral process that is conducted in a clean and democratic way.”

Later, Mr. Martínez told reporters that The Times would soon publish an account of Ms. Alfaro’s trip to the embassy in a statement that was videotaped and widely circulated on social media. “This is something evil they want to do to destabilize the election,” Martínez said in the video.

When asked about Ms Alfaro’s allegations and the embassy’s response, a State Department spokeswoman Christina Tilghman said: “We do not confirm the existence of any alleged meetings, nor discuss the content of diplomatic talks .”

Ms. Tilghman said that when the US government receives allegations of corruption that “meet the evidentiary requirements under US regulations and law,” it imposes sanctions or otherwise punishes those involved.

The actions of the election authority have led civil rights groups to question whether Sunday’s presidential election battle can really be considered free and fair.

“Legality is not the same as legitimacy,” said Juan Francisco Sandoval, a former anti-corruption prosecutor who now lives in the United States and is one of dozens of prosecutors and judges who have gone into exile in recent years.

The vote, he said, will be marred by both “arbitrary rulings” over who was allowed to participate, and an increase in illegal campaign financing using public funds.

Although they came from different ideological backgrounds, at least three of the excluded candidates were seen as troubling Guatemala’s political establishment.

One of them, Carlos Pineda, positioned himself as an outside businessman and used TikTok to get ahead in the polls.

“They went after us because we rose so much in the polls that we could make history by winning in the first round,” said Mr Pineda, referring to the fact that if no one wins more than 50 percent of the vote, a a second round takes place between the two best candidates. “This election is illegal.”

Another excluded candidate, Thelma Cabrera, is a leftist from a Maya Mam family who is trying to organize Guatemala’s indigenous people, who make up about half of the population, into a unified political force. A third, Roberto Arzú, is a right-wing scion of a political family who had positioned himself as an opponent of the country’s elites.

Mr Giammattei, who is prohibited by law from seeking re-election, has remained silent about the exclusion of several top candidates. The race has largely become one between three leading candidates seen as having some continuity with the status quo.

Sandra Torres was the first lady from 2008 to 2011, when she was married to President Álvaro Colom. They divorced when Ms. Torres first ran for president in 2011 (Guatemalan law prohibits family members of a president from running for office).

Ms Torres was arrested in 2019 in connection with campaign finance violations, but the case was dismissed by a judge in 2022, just weeks before the campaign officially started, allowing her to flee. Her platform highlights promises to expand social programs, including remittances for the poor.

Another leading candidate, Zury Ríos, is the daughter of Efraín Ríos Montt, a Guatemalan dictator in the early 1980s who ordered extreme tactics against a guerrilla insurgency and was convicted of genocide in 2013 for attempting to dethrone the Ixil to wipe out, a Mayan people indigenous to Guatemala.

Ms. Ríos has not been remorseful for her father’s actions, even as far as to deny this year that the genocide took place. An evangelical Christian, she gained popularity among conservatives after allying with figures who wanted to blunt anti-corruption initiatives. When she served in Congress she emphasized women’s issues, but during the presidential campaign she has emphasized adopting strict security policies to fight crime.

Another contender, Edmond Mulet, is a former diplomat who is generally conservative. Mr Mulet, whose proposals include expanding internet access and providing free medicines, has criticized the prosecution of journalists and prosecutors, but has also forged links with powerful deep-rooted political figures to avoid the fate of excluded candidates.

Opinion polls in recent weeks show none of the three are expected to come close to a majority of the vote on Sunday, which would force a runoff on August 30.

The contest, experts said, shows how effective Guatemala’s rulers have been in rooting out any real source of dissent.

“The arming of the judicial system is driving some of the brightest minds in the country to leave and intimidating anyone who is left,” said Regina Bateson, a University of Ottawa scholar specializing in Guatemala. The result, she said, is an “election that undermines democracy”.