The head of the Guatemalan Presidential Commission for Human Rights (Copredeh), Víctor Godoy, reported on Saturday that he will resign his position in rejection of the failed expulsion of a UN anti-mafia commissioner by order of Jimmy Morales.
Godoy said he made that decision because he “does not share the president’s position” by declaring on the head of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (Cicig), Colombian Iván Velasquez, persona non grata.
He stated that the “irrevocable” resignation was drafted on Monday, a day after the presidential decision, but became effective on Friday.
The presidential order was definitively suspended last Tuesday by the Constitutional Court (CC), the country’s highest court, in the midst of a political earthquake that generated expressions of rejection of Morales’ decision.
The President accused Velásquez of interfering and overstaying his duties, but the measure was criticized because he announced it two days after Cicig and the prosecution asked to start an investigation on possible illicit financing for the 2015 electoral campaign.
The attempted expulsion by the president has already led to the resignation of the leadership of the Ministry of Health and a senior commercial official, while Chancellor Carlos Raul Morales was dismissed.