by Our Foreign Desk

PRESIDENT Otto Perez came under fresh pressure to step down at the weekend when thousands gathered in the main Constitution Square in Guatemala City to protest against corruption.

Many of the demonstrators’ placards called for the president to go, others urged a crackdown on political corruption and crime.

Anger has been boiling for months in the wake of a wave of corruption scandals that has brought about a cabinet shake-up and the resignation of the vice-president.

The protests have grown in recent weeks as arrests of officials drove Mr Perez last week to dismiss the interior, energy and environment ministers and the country’s intelligence chief among other senior officials.

The day before the reshuffle, central bank head Julio Suarez and 14 other people were arrested, accused of rigging a multimillion-dollar contract from the country’s Social Security Institute in favour of a pharmaceutical firm.

And vice-president Roxana Baldetti stepped down last month following allegations of her link to a ring accused of taking bribes to avoid customs taxes.

Corruption scandals have buffeted Mr Perez’s conservative Patriot Party in the run-up to September’s presidential elections. He is barred from re-election but insists that he will not leave early.

Nobel peace prize winner Rigoberta Menchu appealed to the president last week to step aside because he is “responsible for the levels of corruption affecting the state.”

Similar calls came from the Guatemalan Bar and the Centre for the Defence of the Constitution, which said that resignation was “necessary to re-establish the credibility of the country’s institutions.”