Do we like them?Do we like Bernardo Arévalo?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Decent and on the right side of the harm question, with real reform wins, but the emergency powers and deportee deals are contested calls.
Arévalo is an academic and former diplomat who came from nowhere in 2023 to make the presidential runoff on an anti-corruption platform. He is the son of Juan José Arévalo, the reformist president of the 1940s and 50s, so the democratic-reform pitch is basically the family business. He won the runoff and was finally sworn in in January 2024 after a long, chaotic fight over whether he'd be allowed to take office.
The defining stoush of his presidency was with Attorney General Consuelo Porras. AP reports she has been accused of using the prosecutor's office against journalists, political opponents and Arévalo himself, and that 40 countries have sanctioned her. Her term ended in May 2026, and he picked her successor from a shortlist put up by a nominating commission. That's the win his supporters point to as the big one.
On the harm check, we found no anti-LGBTQ+, anti-women or anti-migrant words or campaigns from him, and no climate denial. His first cabinet was split evenly between women and men, and in 2024 he publicly honoured the struggle of Indigenous women. The gaps are real, though: his first cabinet had only one Indigenous member, and we found no concrete LGBTQ+ legislation, just a pledge to fight discrimination.
Where he gets heat is security. After gang attacks killed police officers, he declared a 30-day state of emergency in January 2026, which Congress approved. Rights watchers warned about drifting toward El Salvador's model, while analysts noted that on the ground it looked quite different. Whether you see a leader responding to a real crisis or a risky precedent depends on how the powers are used from here.
On migration he's walking a tightrope with Washington. In February 2025 his government agreed to take deportees of other nationalities from the US, and reports say he has avoided open fights with the Trump administration over mass deportations. Guatemala leans heavily on money sent home by migrants, so there's a pragmatic case. Critics on the left call it complicity, and that one's a fair argument to have.
The reform push is also hitting walls. In March 2026 a Congress hostile to him picked another Constitutional Court magistrate, which Tico Times framed as a blow to his judicial reform plans, amid accusations the US embassy had lobbied for the pick. Fighting a hostile Congress and courts with no majority is slow, grinding work, and some of the setbacks aren't of his making.