The president of Guatemala is vowing to crack down on demonstrators complaining of mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic and protesting delays in shipments of Russia’s Sputnik vaccine
A crowd of about 300 protesters gathered Saturday in the principle sq. of the capital to demand the resignation of President Alejandro Giammattei for his failure to acquire sufficient vaccine.
On Monday, banners appeared on a number of streets in Guatemala Metropolis demanding Giammattei resign.
Referring to the protests, Giammattei stated: “We’re going to restrict this sort of factor. I believe that is sufficient already.”
“These persons are spreading the virus and inflicting extra issues, that’s what they need and they’re spreading it via a sequence of unlawful demonstrations,” he added.
Giammattei signed a deal for 16 million doses of the two-dose Russian vaccine, and paid 50%, or nearly $80 million, up entrance. However solely about 550,000 Sputnik doses have arrived to date.
About 1.5 million doses of the Moderna vaccine have been donated by the USA. However with simply over 2 million doses, Guatemala does not have practically sufficient for its 17 million folks.
Opposition legislator Andrea Villagrán stated it was unacceptable that the federal government was focusing its efforts on limiting protests reasonably than containing the pandemic.
“What he actually desires is to quash freedom of expression,” Villagrán stated. “If he actually needed to deal with the difficulty of the pandemic, there are different mechanisms they aren’t utilizing, like guaranteeing that malls, eating places and vacationer spots adjust to (sanitary) measures.”
Thus far, Guatemala has registered nearly 320,000 coronavirus instances and 9,721 COVID-19 deaths.