 Bernardo Arrivalo won the Guatemalan presidential election in August but ever since, right wing sections have been trying to prevent his taking over. Arrivalo was supposed to be sworn in on Sunday but the right wing made a last-minute attempt to weaken his power in what is being called a coup attempt. With his supporters mobilizing on the streets and international pressure bearing down on his opponents, Arrivalo finally did manage to take over on Monday 9 hours after he was scheduled to. We go to Zoe to understand what happened on that Sunday. Zoe, thank you so much for joining us. A very eventful Sunday for the people of Guatemala. Could you take us through what happened? Why was there such a pushback against Bernardo Arrivalo's party and how was it overcome? Well, Sunday, January 14th was the day that Bernardo Arrivalo was set to be inaugurated as the next president of Guatemala. And as we've been covering on people's dispatch over the past several months, there have been numerous attempts to undermine his electoral victory to remind viewers he won the elections in Guatemala in August. Again, Sandra Torres, the former First Lady, his victory again was perhaps surprising to sectors of the ruling class that had long held control over power in Guatemala. And even before he won in the second round, they'd already begun to maneuver to prevent his victory. And then once he won, to really prevent him from being able to take power. And this carried on really up until he was sworn in, which didn't end up taking place on Sunday, January 14th. He was sworn in on the morning of January 15th, after hours of delays of different attempts of the kind of the last desperate attempts of the right wing coup supporting sectors to kind of thwart his ascension to power. They did this through a variety of ways. They had already tried to ban his party. And when the members of Congress were being sworn in, they tried to force members of Bernardo Arrivalo's party, Movimento Semilla, to be sworn in as independence. Of course, this would mean that within the Congress, they would not belong to Movimento Semilla. And this sort of weakens their power. And his power again, as president, if he has no party representation in Congress. This maneuver, however, was met with widespread rejection, both within the Congress and on the streets. Something that we've also reported on is that through all of these attempted coup measures, the indigenous movement, student movement, the movement against corruption in Guatemala has been really in support of defending democracy, defending his candidacy, and then defending his victory. So already there were people mobilizing on the streets, putting pressure on legislators to not allow this to go through. And this attempt to kind of subvert and again ban the Semilla party was reversed. And a member of his party actually won the presidency of the Congress. And many, many hours later on the morning of January 15th, Arrivalo was sworn in. Notably, his predecessor, Alejandro Di Amate, was not present, did not attend the soaring in ceremony. I think it's important to note just because he is definitely one of the people that was behind and was against an anti-corruption activist and politician being winning the presidency, having been accused of corruption himself, having benefited from the dismantling of the UN corruption investigation. So these are all really crucial elements. At the end of the day, the international delegations that were present for his inauguration put a lot of pressure on legislators. They all signed an open letter. This is including the representative of the Organization of American States, the representative of the European Union who are all present in Guatemala for this inauguration. And then, of course, the different heads of state from the region, Gustavo Petros and Amaro Castro. Gustavo Petro actually threatened to cancel his trip to Davos if Bernardo Arrivalo was not able to take office. He said that he wouldn't leave Guatemala until he's sworn in. Important to point out because Petro has also been, of course, under constant attack from the countries, from Colombia's right wing and has resisted these coup attempts on the streets with the people. So a turbulent last 24 hours as the president-elect, however he is now sworn in as president, he has thanked, for example, the indigenous communities that mobilized on the street that really were this rearguard in defending him and democracy in Guatemala. It's important to note as well that this is someone who is not, the US was one of the countries that was also calling on the right wing to back down and calling this an attempted coup. Arrivalo has already had a meeting with the US delegation. It looks like they're going to have very friendly relations. We know that the US is shifting its policy towards Latin America, especially Central America. Guatemala is one of the most populous countries in Central America and, of course, has been a key partner with the US in terms of its immigration policy. So these are all really key factors that we'll definitely have to keep looking out for. How does that evolve with his presidency? What kind of relationship is he going to have with the US? And how will that play out a positive relationship with the US? Guatemala, of course, has a torrid history of US intervention. So these are all key points to continue to look out for. And, of course, we know that like in all cases, the right wing and the coup-supporting right wing does not disappear after they fail. So that's something that will definitely continue to be there throughout his presidency. That will be a continued challenge for him to face these sectors that conspired using all branches of power at its disposal in an attempt to subvert democracy and undermine the elections. Thank you, Zoe, so much for that update. COVID-19 may no longer be headline-worthy news, but it continues to take lives. By the end of 2023, 7 million people had died due to the disease since it broke out. The WHO has warned against complacency and insisted that vaccine programs continue. We go to Anna to understand where we are at in the fight against COVID-19. Anna, thanks for joining us. COVID-19 is an issue we have not talked about for a long time on this show. In fact, it has quite disappeared from the headlines across the world. But the number is still very staggering, 7 million deaths by the end of 2023. Could you maybe first give us an overview of what the situation is with the pandemic regarding its spread? Well, despite the fact that COVID-19 is no longer in the news, it's very much around us. That's something that the World Health Organization made very clear in their beginning of the year address. As we enter, this is the 50th year of COVID-19. The health emergency, as we have known it in 2020, is of course over. But that doesn't mean that the disease is still not spreading. And as you pointed out, it's still killing people. So what we have seen over the last weeks is that there is a new variant, which is quite easily spread around. And thousands of people around the world are reporting problems, they're contracting the disease. We are seeing some numbers that in the times of a big pandemic would have meant a complete shutdown. We're not seeing that anymore because it's somehow people have grown accustomed to COVID-19, the governments have also. So what we are seeing is a much more relaxed approach to something that's still causing disease and making lives harder for people around the world. Now, also as you rightly pointed out, what the WHO said during this first press conference of the year is that the number of deaths that we have seen from COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic is incredible. So 7 million deaths. And that's probably underreported. So that's also something that the WHO is pointing out. And what they're saying is that, of course, you know, well, it's it's understandable that our approach to COVID-19 has now changed. That does not mean that people should not still be should not take precautions against getting infected. And of course, that governments should should should in fact continue to try and ensure that people can access protective equipment that they can get vaccinated and that they should should explain why people should get all the vaccine doses that they can. So the booster doses that are still there are very, very relevant still. Right. This brings us to the second question always associated with COVID-19, but also health in general, the question of inequities and how they're continuing continuing to sort of affect people. So how, you know, what is happening on that front? Has there been, you know, has the gap been bridged, especially when vaccines are concerned? Well, several reports in the last couple of weeks have pointed out that health inequities, if anything, have gotten worse since the pandemic and that the pandemic was just another, you know, one other layer on top of everything else that we were already seeing. In addition to people dying to poor people dying more of COVID-19 than rich ones, of course, we have also seen that across the world, the accessibility of COVID-19 vaccines is still very unequally spread. So, you know, while we're seeing that in many countries in the global south, people are still not reaching the vaccination rates that we would aim for, or that would have been aimed for during when the pandemic was news. On the other hand, we have a whole list of European countries that have destroyed millions and millions of vaccine doses over the last months because they have expired. So some approximations put a cost on billions of euros, essentially. And then when we look at how much European countries, countries of the EU have destroyed, it amounts to the health budget of some of the minor states in the EU. And this, of course, is likely to continue for a set of time because some of the agreement signed between the EU, the EU members and the vaccine manufacturers actually bind the European countries to continue buying the vaccines throughout years to come, although they're not using them. So what we're seeing, of course, is that people, the update is very slow. People are no longer interested. Governments are essentially no longer interested in tracking COVID-19 data. And that's likely to be a problem. But of course, you know, now we're coming back to the whole, to the set of problems, of health problems that were caused by health inequities already before the pandemic. We know that people are still struggling in the global north, in the global south, with cost of living crisis. Food prices make adequate nutrition out of reach for money. And essentially, the social problems that are increasing are also likely to continue influence health as well. Right Anna, thank you so much for that update. And that's all we have in this episode of Daily Deep Brief. We'll be back with another episode tomorrow. In the meanwhile, do visit our website peoplesdispatch.org and follow us on all the social media platforms.