This is the transcript of episode 62 of the weekly El Faro English podcast, Central America in Minutes.
PORRAS: I have never been one to seek out a position. I have always placed myself in the hands of my Creator. I’m a woman of faith, ready and willing to do whatever He wants me to do for the people of Guatemala.
RAMAZZINI, HOST: This year in Guatemala, a lot is happening. New magistrates will be put on the Constitutional Court, Supreme Electoral Tribunal, and more. And in May, a new attorney general will take office.
The current top prosecutor, Consuelo Porras, who has been internationally sanctioned for corruption, applied for a seat on the Constitutional Court. Suffice it to say that the political scene became a hornet’s nest.
Illegal adoptions in Guatemala
On Monday, university representatives in Guatemala voted for candidates for constitutional magistrates — yep, that’s how the system is set up here. It’s the highest court in the country, even above the Supreme Court of Justice.
Just a few hours earlier, a group of special U.N. experts warned of allegations linking Consuelo Porras to illegal adoptions in the 1980s, during the internal armed conflict.
Two days later, the U.S. Embassy turned up the heat. They warned that, in another of the selection processes, for electoral magistrates, “Guatemalan university authorities opened the doors to criminal drug trafficking organizations.”
Porras has been sanctioned by the U.S. State Department, Canada, and the European Union for corruption and lawfare. She is set to end her second term as top prosecutor in May. And she even announced she would run for the Constitutional Court.
But the U.N. now says they obtained evidence that Porras was the legal guardian of 80 children put up for adoption in 1982. They called for caution when voting for magistrates. Despite much saber-rattling, Porras ultimately received no votes.
Podcast: Two Years of Siege at the Guatemalan Electoral Tribunal
Unless she obtains another office granting her immunity from prosecution, this would leave her subject to criminal investigation. But it seems she has tried to play her own cards to protect herself.
Over the past four years, she has carried out a purge of the Public Prosecutor’s Office. For example, she removed almost all of the human rights prosecutors working on a series of high-stakes criminal trials stemming from the armed conflict.
She has also criminalized dozens of anti-mafia judges and prosecutors, journalists, and human rights defenders. Many of them fled for exile.
In 2023, she sought to illegally overturn the election results, despite resistance from the Organization of American States. And OCCRP named her the “Corrupt Person of the Year”.
Attorney General Porras has dismissed the most recent allegations of signing off on illicit adoptions. She says she will file a formal complaint with the U.N.
Meanwhile, the Solicitor General’s Office announced that it opened an investigation into the adoptions. It looks like the hornet’s nest will keep on rattling.
Secret budget in El Salvador
Next, to El Salvador. The Legislative Assembly chose one word to describe their 2026 budget: austerity. But they’re keeping the vast majority of details under lock and key.
We’re not talking about the national budget, but rather the budget to pay for the operations of the deputies.
That includes salaries, staffing, and facility maintenance, but also certain quote-unquote “privileges” that are unpopular in a country where deputies earn many times more than the majority of the population.
This year, it will be $46.9 million, the same amount as in 2025. When the ruling party Nuevas Ideas took control in 2021, it inherited a larger budget of $58.3 million, approved by today’s opposition.
In a recent interview with the state newspaper Diario El Salvador, Assembly President Ernesto Castro said that this figure is proof of a break with “unrealistic” budgets and wasteful spending.
Ernesto Castro is a close associate of Bukele, former private secretary, and business partner. He has promised to curb “excess” such as vehicles and cell phones assigned to boards of directors, as well as nepo-salaries.
The annual budget is one of the few documents available to examine legislative spending. But what little has been published doesn’t include where spending has been reduced.
Acción Ciudadana, a Salvadoran organization that monitors the use of public funds, determined that the Assembly only presented 10 percent of information about its budget. It withheld all information regarding purchases, bids, and contracts until August 2027.
But it is clear that the 11-million-dollar reduction since 2021 is due, at least in part, to the number of legislators. In 2023, President Nayib Bukele reduced the Assembly from 84 to 60 deputies.
Keep in mind that public support for Bukele does not extend cleanly to his deputies, even though the president has exercised total control over every decision made by the Assembly for almost five years.
The Assembly regularly makes major decisions like rewriting the Constitution without public scrutiny or legislative debate.
That helps explain why the ruling party changed the electoral calendar so that deputies are elected at the same time as the president, in 2027. One election, one ballot, and the letter N, which stands for Nuevas Ideas — or for Nayib Bukele.
Migration as pressure point in Nicaragua
Since 2021, Nicaraguan co-dictators Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have pressured the United States with migration. That year, Managua eliminated visas as a requirement for entry into their country for citizens of Cuba, Haiti, and even Libya.
Ortega said removing the visa requirement was a humanitarian measure against the decades-long blockade of Cuba. But at the same time, Managua charged each migrant $1,000 dollars.
In 2023 alone, some 200,000 Cubans arrived in the United States, more than half via Managua. It was a historic number.
That changed on February 10, when the Nicaraguan government closed the route. The General Directorate of Migration and Foreigners announced the reinstatement of visas for Cubans, without further explanation.
Since the start of the year, Venezuela has been on Ortega and Murillo’s mind. The U.S. military invasion to capture Nicolás Maduro, led the co-presidents to ratchet up state surveillance.
Podcast: Nicaragua Gets Mixed Signals from Trump
The U.S. made it clear that what interests it most are critical resources.
Soon after, the Nicaraguan regime released dozens of political prisoners in response to calls from Washington.
Reinstating visa requirements for Cubans had been a U.S. demand for years, and it only occurred after Maduro’s capture.
U.S. pressure is not letting up. This week, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals backed the Trump administration in its decision to end Temporary Protected Status for 89,000 migrants, including tens of thousands of Nicaraguans, and also for Hondurans.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sanctioned Roberto Clemente Guevara, director of the maximum security prison “La Modelo,” which has held many political prisoners.
Some 2,000 other Nicaraguan officials have been sanctioned by the United States for human rights violations.Trump also announced in December that over the next two years he will increase tariffs on Nicaraguan products not covered by the free trade agreement CAFTA.
But after its invasion of Venezuela, Nicaragua isn’t the top priority for Trump. For more on this at times contradictory relationship, stream our episode from February 8: Nicaragua Gets Mixed Signals from Trump.
This episode was produced with support from the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives. It was written by Yuliana Ramazzini and Gabriel Labrador. Editing by Roman Gressier and sound design by Omnionn. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, iHeart, and YouTube.