"Out! Out! Out!"

Plaza Publica

Thousands of protesters turned out in Guatemala City to demand the resignation of President Otto Perez Molina and Vice President Roxana Baldetti .

Protesters gathered for the demonstration, which they dubbed "Give Up Already," banging pans and blowing whistles as they marched to the National Palace waving the Guatemalan flag.

"We do not want thieves to continue to rule us, to see us as toys, it is brazen what they do with the people of Guatemala," protester Maria Letona told AFP.

PanAm Post gives a number of 15,000 protesters but it's not clear where that estimate comes from. (Update: 20,000 - 30,000 maybe but nothing official). That's a pretty significant number but probably not enough to force either the vice president or president to resign at this time. We'll have to see where the protests go from here. Either way, I'm impressed with the turnout by Guatemalans demanding the resignations of the president and vice president. A remarkable day.

I know I shouldn't be but I'm still amazed that this level of corruption is going on eight years into CICIG's mandate, especially if the fraud goes directly to Perez Molina and Baldetii as most seem to suspect. It's possible that the vice president and the president won't be able to complete their terms in office but we are going to need additional evidence that they are the individuals referred to on the SAT audio tapes provided by the Public Ministry and CICIG.

I'm wondering how much the SAT scandal hurts Obama's aid plan for the Northern Triangle. Members of the US Congress have been pretty outspoken in sharing their concerns about providing our Central American partners with additional sums of money at the same time that we know so much corruption is occurring in the region. Vice President Biden seemed to condition aid on an extension of CICIG's mandate. That would be one way that Guatemalan political elites could demonstrate their commitment to tackling corruption.

CICIG's mandate was eventually extended but only because they went public about corruption leading all the way up to the vice president's office, if not higher. I'm not sure that is what they had in mind.