Guatemala's Congress approved Legislative Agreement 25-2026 on Tuesday, November 10, 2026, condemning the killing of lawmaker Julio César Portillo Paz and of the three Policía Nacional Civil (PNC, the National Civil Police) officers assigned to his security detail, and offering condolences to the four victims' families. The agreement takes effect immediately and will be published in the official gazette.
Before the vote, the chamber held a minute of silence, tied a black mourning ribbon to the national flag and laid a floral tribute on the lawmaker's seat.
The attack
Portillo Paz, 35, was killed on Friday, November 6, in an armed attack in Río Hondo, in the department of Zacapa. Officers Fernando Antonio Reyes Aldana, Érick Armides Ramos Osorio and Jorge Paau Xicol, who were guarding him, died with him. Early reports described him as stable; hours later, Congress and the leadership of the Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE), an opposition party, confirmed his death.
It was his first term. He was elected for Zacapa on the Cabal party list in the 2023 elections and later joined the UNE caucus.
Congress calls it political violence; the electoral tribunal sees no motive
In the first session after the killing, several caucus leaders treated the recent crimes as political violence. Orlando Blanco, of VOS and a member of the chamber's board, said that "no Guatemalan, man or woman, deserves to be a victim of violence," and demanded concrete results from the Ministerio Público (MP, the public prosecution service) and the Ministerio de Gobernación (the interior ministry). José Inés Castillo, head of the UNE caucus, said "Guatemala is going back to the era of the 1970s and 1980s."
Opposition lawmaker Allan Rodríguez proposed summoning interior minister Marco Antonio Villeda: "the outlook does not look good at all, not only for politicians but for the people of Guatemala," he said. Byron Rodríguez, of the Todos caucus, questioned the government's security policy with the 2027 general elections approaching.
A day earlier, the Tribunal Supremo Electoral (TSE, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal) set up a working group to prevent electoral violence and said its analysis had not identified, so far, a political motive in the recent crimes. Among them is the October 17 armed attack on lawyer Juan Francisco Solórzano Foppa, who was wounded.
The two readings coexist: Congress sees a political pattern a year and a half before the elections, while the electoral referee has yet to find a thread tying the cases together.
The replacement
After the vote and the honours, the chamber swore in Marvin Esaú Rivas Castañeda, who will serve out the term of the 10th legislature, through 2028. Rivas was second on Cabal's Zacapa list in 2023, behind Portillo.
Agreement 25-2026 asks the MP and the interior ministry to investigate swiftly and bring those responsible to justice. Prosecutors processed the crime scene. As of this writing there are no detainees and no publicly identified suspects.
With information from Prensa Libre, Infobae and Publinews.
