What we face now in Guatemala is another kind of coup d’état, a “soft coup” where a sitting leader conspires behind the scenes, with the final objective of not ceding power to the rightful winner of an election, instead passing the office illegally to another person or entity, thus breaking the constitutional order and reversing the will of the people. The conspirator weaponizes prosecutors and judges to violate electoral constitutional law and retroactively derail an election.

Instead of using blunt force or violence, a “soft coup” is carried out under the veil of legality, manipulating the levers of jurisprudence, or overstepping them entirely to entrap the democratic process. To discredit or call into question an election that has already been certified and declared clean by an electoral authority and international official observers, is part of a soft coup.

GUATEMALA CITY — Before Guatemala’s presidential election, candidate Bernardo Arévalo didn’t think he had much of a chance. “Don’t worry,” he told his wife. “It’ll be over and we’ll have time for ourselves again.”

Arévalo, whose center-left party had coaxed him into running, had never had strong political aspirations and was polling badly. A former diplomat and peacemaking expert, he was already talking with prospective employers about postelection jobs.

GUATEMALA CITY — Three magistrates of Guatemala’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal left the country in the hours after the country’s Congress opened them to prosecution by stripping them of their immunity as the losing side in the presidential election continued its efforts to interfere with the results.

A spokesperson for Guatemala’s immigration agency confirmed Friday that the jurists had left Guatemala that day after the Congress voted near midnight Thursday to lift the immunity of four of the court’s five magistrates. The agency did not say where the magistrates had gone. None of the magistrates have commented.