In a country that has been characterized by its high level of violence and historically strong repression of social movements and mobilizations, people demonstrated peacefully during twenty weeks in Guatemala City 2015. The mobilizations started after the revelation of a corruption network described as The Line, which involved both the Guatemalan Government and the Guatemalan Superintendence of Tax Administration. Each Saturday from April – August, Guatemalans gathered at the main square in the Capital City, to protest against corruption and to demand the resignation of President Otto Pérez Molina and Vice President Roxana Baldetti. After intensive demonstrations calling for the Vice-Presidents resignation, Baldetti resigned on May 8. The President resigned on September 2, four days before the general elections and both Baldetti and Pérez Molina were sentenced to prison because of their involvement in the corruption network. This essay aims to give answer to why people mobilized during several weeks and to create a greater understanding for why the mobilizations occurred. The Political Process Model has been used to analyze the character of the protests. This qualitative study is based on 16 semi-structured interviews conducted in Guatemala during the period of October – December 2015. A targeted selection and a snowball sampling method were used to identify persons to interview. The research showed that people identified the situation in Guatemala as a political crisis, which encouraged a broad participation in the protests. The traditional dynamic of challengers and members changed during the weeks of demonstrations. Since traditional polity members turned into challengers, the mobilizations had a high political leverage which made state led repression less likely. Therefore the demonstrations were interpreted as safe and consequently the participation increased. Traditional movements put their specific demands aside in order to be part of the collective demands against corruption. In other words, persons participated rather as individuals than as representatives from their movements.

Tesis para optar al grado académico de magíster en estudios internacionales. / Esta investigación se centra en estudiar los diversos factores que la literatura ha planteado como relevantes para la ocurrencia de presidencias fallidas en América Latina, y ver cómo se comportan éstos y los mecanismos causales que se desarrollan, en los contextos de Brasil con los mandatos de Dilma Rousseff y en Guatemala con Otto Pérez Molina. Además, se busca evaluar qué otras variables fueron posibles de observar, y que no están mayormente trabajadas en estudios previos. Teniendo todos estos elementos en consideración, lo que se realiza una vez que se logran analizar cada una de las presidencias y los contextos mencionados, es una comparación de los factores presentes en ambos mandatos y evaluar en conjunto cuáles tuvieron mayor incidencia en las presidencias en cuestión. / This research focuses on studying the various factors that the literature has posed as relevant to the occurrence of failed presidencies in Latin America, and see how they behave and the causal mechanisms that develop, in the Brazilian contexts with the mandates of Dilma Rousseff and in Guatemala with Otto Pérez Molina. In addition, we seek to evaluate which other variables were possible to observe, and which are not mainly worked on in previous studies. Taking all these elements into consideration, what is done once you can analyze each of the presidencies and the contexts mentioned, is a comparison of the factors present in both mandates and evaluate together which had the greatest impact on the presidencies in question.