AMNA NAWAZ: Guatemala is Central America's most populous country and critical to U.S. efforts to control regional migration.

In August, the country elected an outsider, an anti-corruption activist who vows to take on entrenched elites that have weakened the judiciary and persecuted Guatemalan journalists and activists.

Nick Schifrin speaks to the president-elect in his first English-language interview since the election and reports on the promise of his presidency.

NICK SCHIFRIN: When the pact of the corrupt came for Guatemala's democracy, they missed the crusader.

Bernardo Arevalo told Guatemalans, yes, they could fight corruption.

And, in August's election, Arevalo and his party came out of nowhere to overcome a political establishment that had tried to silence them.

BERNARDO AREVALO, Guatemalan President-Elect (through translator): What the people shout about is, enough with so much corruption.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Arevalo won in a landslide by appealing to young, urban, and indigenous voters.

He wants to tackle corruption and build state institutions to reduce the root causes that have pushed more Guatemalans to migrate than from any other Latin American country.

But the entrenched elites have resisted the people's will.

The attorney general's office has raided electoral offices and seized election materials to try and destroy Arevalo's party and prevent his presidency.

The U.S. called those actions an effort to undermine the peaceful transfer of power and is imposing visa restrictions on corrupt actors.

Arevalo is a former university professor and an outsider.

But his father is former President Juan Jose Arevalo, who gave birth in the 1950s to Guatemala's first Democratic spring after a century of dictatorship.

Bernardo Arevalo's party is called Seed Movement that hopes to grow a new spring for democracy.

President-elect Arevalo, thank you very much.

Welcome to the "NewsHour."

You received a resounding mandate in this election, but you have faced a relentless campaign against your party, including another raid on electoral authorities this past Friday.

So are you confident that you will in fact be sworn in as president in January, as scheduled?

BERNARDO AREVALO: Yes, I'm very confident.

Legally, there is no question.

Politically, we enjoy a very high level of support from every quarter in society.

We know that, even though the corrupt functionaries in the general office are going to continue attempting any way to derail the process and deny the people the electoral result, it is not going to work.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Has there been any evidence behind their accusations?

BERNARDO AREVALO: None whatsoever.

We have been denied the right of defense, because they basically have not granted us access to the case.

They don't have any solid evidence, and they are just spreading innuendo around our case.

NICK SCHIFRIN: You have called it a coup d'etat.

Is that what you think is happening?

BERNARDO AREVALO: Well, a coup d'etat is the moment at which a state institution alters constitutional order.

And that is what is exactly happening.

Their hope is that, eventually, there will be some sort of reversal or alteration of the electoral result, so that those who have been elected to take office will not be able to do so.

And that is a coup d'etat.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The U.S. officials who I speak to hope that their visa restrictions have sent a message to entrenched interests in the private sector especially.

Do you think that is the case?

BERNARDO AREVALO: We have been working with the private sector in order to begin to identify common efforts for development in the future.

We know that many in the private sector are willing and really interested in collaborating with our government in this new vision for development that we are bringing forward.

But there might be other specific actors in the private sector that might still be acting in an undemocratic way.

And that is something that we don't rule out.

NICK SCHIFRIN: You have received death threats.

Some in the U.S. government I talk to are concerned about your security.

Is the U.S. helping with your security, and are you concerned about your own security?

BERNARDO AREVALO: Well, we have received threats, death threats, that have been informed to us officially.

These have resulted in the state providing enhanced security apparatus that we are working now, with the collaboration of the United States too.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Assuming you become president, assuming members of your party are able to sit in Congress, they will not be a majority.

The other parties have not indicated that they will work with you.

The judiciary apparently is against you.

Even that attorney general we spoke about will stay in power.

How will you move forward with your agenda, despite those challenges?

BERNARDO AREVALO: Well, political alignments that were there before the electoral results are already beginning to change, because previous political alignments were sustained by the possibility of having access to corrupt funds.

And this is disappearing because we have control over the budget.

And we are not going to allow corrupt actors to have control over the budget.

And, on the other hand, we cannot rely on a government solution that is based exclusively in our relationship between Congress and executive.

We have to find ways in which we build coalitions of social actors that support an agenda for development.

And this is the one that is brought forward to the attention of the political parties in Congress.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And yet, as you know, across decades of Guatemalan history, when leaders have tried to fight corruption, corruption has fought back, from when your father was president, there have been repeated backlashes, all the way to more recent U.N. efforts that included high-profile prosecutions and detentions.

Why do you think your reform agenda will not share the same fate?

BERNARDO AREVALO: The future is not a repetition of history.

And we see time and again that societies that have had these type of problematic paths and secular problems actually find their way out of them.

And we believe that this is the moment for Guatemalan society and that it is our duty as a government to try to foster these change of relations in order to break the vicious circle that has chained our country into poverty and corruption.

NICK SCHIFRIN: One of the efforts, of course, that the U.S. hopes to partner with you on is migration.

How do you propose to work with the U.S. to stem migration flows?

BERNARDO AREVALO: Well, I think that, first of all, we have to understand that we are dealing with a regional problem.

We have to understand the problem of migration both in terms of the reasons why people continue to escape from their countries, and this is because of poverty or violence, or a combination of both, and then have mechanisms to address these structural reasons.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Your surprise election, if you don't mind my calling it that, your background has led some here in Washington to believe you are, at least hope you are, a transformative figure.

Do you think you are?

BERNARDO AREVALO: Well, that's clearly what I -- we intend to do, not only me, but my running mate, Dr. Herrera, and our party.

We came into politics because we want to transform the life of Guatemalans for the better.

So, yes, we believe and we are going to be a transformative force in Guatemala.

NICK SCHIFRIN: What do you think your victory, your movement means when it comes to those who are so worried about antidemocratic forces gaining momentum across the region?

BERNARDO AREVALO: Well, I think that we have to understand that what the people in the region want is transformation, change in their livelihoods.

They need political systems that respond and addresses their needs, and that we need democratic institutions to be able to address those needs, and that it is our task to try to find ways into which we can make our governments in all the Latin American region responsive to the needs of the population, so that they are going to maintain their allegiance to our democratic institutions.

I think that, in Guatemala, we have an opportunity to build such a vision.

And this is going to be beneficial to all the countries in the region as well.

NICK SCHIFRIN: President-elect Arevalo, thank you very much BERNARDO AREVALO: You're welcome.