Alejandro Giammattei
Most of the funds are earmarked for privately managed infrastructure and neglect the fight against poverty and child malnutrition, which affects nearly half of all children under five while generating an increase in public debt.A new law on NGOs allowed the president to ban any association they suspected of "disturbing public order" and provided mechanisms to stifle them financially.[15] The International Federation for Human Rights, the World Organisation Against Torture, and other NGOs warned in 2022 about the "strengthening of authoritarian rule" in Guatemala and declared that the country is "experiencing an alarming phenomenon of capture and control of public institutions by economic and political elites."[16] In 2022, the Guatemalan congress passed a bill that would increase prison sentences for abortion, ban sex education in schools, and declare homosexuals "minority groups incompatible with Christian morality.[19] On 30 July 2022, while Gianmattei was visiting some places in the Huehuetenango Department, one of them not far from the Mexican border, there was an incident between security forces and armed people in a vehicle.[21] In July 2021, Alejandro Giammattei's Attorney General, María Consuelo Porras, dismissed the head of the Special Prosecutor's Office against Impunity, Juan Francisco Sandoval, since he intended to investigate corruption cases linked to the president.[22][23] A link to these juridical persecutions appeared in February 2022, when the Salvadoran investigative website El Faro revealed that Giammattei was accused of "financing his [2019] campaign with bribes from a construction company.""[24] There have been five Interior ministers in the presidency of Giammattei: Edgar Godoy, Oliverio Garcia, Gendri Reyes, Napoleón Barrientos, and Byron Bor.[29][30] Giammattei vowed to bring back the death penalty and pledged to "crush violent gangs, fight poverty to stop migration and end 'disgusting' corruption.