The Guatemalan Congress formed a five-member
commission to consider whether Vice President Roxana Baldetti's immunity from prosecution should be revoked in connection with the multi-million dollar customs corruption scandal.
Prosecutors have not implicated her in the case, and President Otto Perez Molina has declined to ask for her resignation.
The congressional commission was formed a day after Guatemala's Supreme Court gave the green light for lawmakers to begin the process of possibly lifting Baldetti's immunity.
Baldetti filed an appeal of the ruling with the Constitutional Court on Thursday.
Several dozen officials and private citizens are suspected of involvement in the alleged bribery scheme, including Baldetti's former personal secretary, Juan Carlos Monzon Rojas, the scheme's purported ringleader who is being sought by police.
While Baldetti has not been charged with any crime, it's clear that she has lost the support of the entire country. Protests calling for her removal continue in the streets of Guatemala and
CACIF is now even calling for her removal.
"It would have a positive impact on society (and) it would strengthen democracy in the country," Briz told reporters.
Baldetti should
resign“for the sake of transparency, governability and in defense of democracy and the preservation of institutionally."
The five-member commission is
comprised of three members of Manuel Baldizon's LIDER party and one each from CREO and UNE. Congress hopes to have a decision in a week's time, but they have 60 days to make a decision. LIDER also controls 62 of the 105 congressional votes needed to remove Baldetti's immunity. Baldizon, the front-runner to be the country's next president, holds the sitting vice-president's future in his hands.
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