Libro Uno. Ciudadanía y voto

This law regulates matters relating to the exercise of political rights; the rights and obligations corresponding to the authorities, to the electoral organs, to the political organizations, and matters relating to the exercise of suffrage and to the electoral process.

All Guatemalans over eighteen years of age are citizens.

The following are rights and duties inherent to citizens:

a)To respect and defend the Political Constitution of the Republic.

b)To register in the Register of Citizens and obtain the Personal Identification Document that empowers them to exercise the rights and fulfill the duties referred to in the present article.

c)To elect and be elected.

d)To exercise suffrage.

e)To seek public office.

f)To safeguard the liberty and effectiveness of suffrage and the purity of the electoral process.

g)To defend the principle of alternation and non-reelection in the exercise of the Presidency and Vice Presidency of the Republic.

h)To perform the electoral functions for which they are designated.

Citizen rights are suspended:

a.By final judgment of conviction, rendered in criminal proceedings;

b.By judicial declaration of interdiction.

The suspension of citizen rights ends:

a.By completion of the penalty imposed in the judgment;

b.By amnesty or by pardon

c.By judicial rehabilitation in the case of interdiction.

The loss of Guatemalan nationality entails the loss of citizenship. Citizenship is recovered upon recovering Guatemalan nationality.

The status of citizen is established by the document issued by the Registry of Citizens, by the annotation in the cédula de vecindad, or by the identity document that replaces it.

Registration in the Register of Citizens is indispensable for the exercise of political rights. No citizen may elect or be elected without having previously complied with such requirement. Those who are not registered must arrange everything necessary for their registration, which shall be carried out free of charge.

To exercise in a given election or consultation the political rights referred to in the present law, registration as a citizen no less than three months prior to the respective event is required, and possession of the corresponding enabling document, which must record the place of residency thereof.

The corresponding authorities are obligated to notify the Register of Citizens, within the term of five days, of the final decisions resolving the following cases:

a.Loss and recovery of citizenship;

b.Suspension and recovery of citizen rights

The Register of Citizens, within a term of five days, shall order the annotations that are appropriate.

The Civil Registrars or those acting in their stead have the obligation to give notice to the Register of Citizens of the death of every person over eighteen years of age, within the eight days following the date of entry of the death certificate and, on the basis of such notices, the respective annotations shall be made cancelling the registration of the citizen. Those who violate the provision contained in this article shall be sanctioned for breach of duties, as established by the Criminal Code, without prejudice to the corresponding disciplinary sanctions, for which purpose the Inspector General of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal shall investigate the facts and file the respective complaints. Where applicable, the delegates or subdelegates of the Register of Citizens may obtain on its own initiative the necessary information and communicate it to said Register so that it cancels the respective registrations in the electoral roll.

The vote is a right and a civic duty inherent to citizenship. It is universal, secret, single, personal and non-delegable.

The right to vote abroad is instituted for Guatemalan citizens in accordance with this Law to elect the President and Vice President.

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal, with the support of the State institutions whose support is requested, shall carry out the necessary actions to guarantee this right; the vote abroad shall be cast on the same date set for the elections in Guatemala. In any event, the specific regulation to be issued by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal shall regulate everything relating to the implementation of voting by Guatemalan citizens abroad.

Republic on 25-05-2016.

Citizens enjoy absolute liberty to cast their vote and no one may, directly or indirectly, compel them to vote or to do so for a specific candidate, slate or political party and, in the case of the consultative procedure contemplated in Article 173 of the Political Constitution of the Republic, to express themselves in a specific sense. The transfer of voters from one municipality to another, by processing for them a fictitious change of electoral residence, is sanctioned in accordance with the law. The change of electoral residence must be made at a minimum one year before the call to general elections. The procedure shall be regulated in the regulations of this Law.

25-05-2016.

The following may not exercise the right to vote:

a)Citizens who are on active service in the National Army or in the police forces and those who hold an appointment for any commission or work of a military nature; and,

b)Those who are suspended in the exercise of their citizen rights or have lost citizenship.

For compliance with these provisions, the corresponding authorities shall send the respective list to the Registry of Citizens, before the closing of registration for each electoral process, so that they are excluded from the electoral roll.

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal shall establish a citizen participation mechanism, which shall promote the participation of registered citizens, with the objective of influencing the definition and development of the public policies of the Guatemalan State.”

25-05-2016.