“We are going to present a request to the TSE (Supreme Electoral Tribunal) because the boards resolved the challenges of the parties. The result has not changed, practically the time for the ballots has closed and as the law establishes, now they must make the results official and assign positions with a view to the second round of elections,” Edie Cux, director of Transparency International and director of Transparency International, told The Associated Press. Citizen Action organization.
In turn, the magistrate of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal Gabriel Aguilar said that “in an exercise of citizenship, (the boards) guarded the vote of each one of the Guatemalans and with the result of the second hearings… the results of the June 25, this must be highlighted (the work of the boards) and support the citizens who have guarded the vote of Guatemalans,” he said.
The preliminary results communicated on the Monday after election day gave the winners of the first round to the center-right presidential candidate Sandra Torres and the left-wing candidate, Bernardo Arévalo, the surprise of the day. Left out of the second round on August 20 were two of the favorites in the previous voting intention polls and the candidate for the ruling party.
After reviewing the votes cast, the results are still to be made official. At a press conference, the TSE magistrates spoke on Friday about the processes that must be followed now after the end of the review hearings.
Irma Palencia, presiding magistrate, said that before the election results are made official, the plenary session of the court will review the results of the second hearings to review the minutes made by the Boards, then the computer audit has to consolidate this. That is presented to the plenary session, so that it can analyze it and arrange the day of officialization.
In addition, the plenary must also resolve the annulments that have been presented before the reviews and later.
The review of the minutes was ordered by the Constitutional Court to the Electoral Boards after the challenges presented by nine parties dissatisfied with the count, a procedure that has prevented until now from proclaiming the preliminary results that placed the center-right candidate in a second round Sandra Torres and the leftist Bernardo Arévalo.
The two candidates with the most votes will meet in the second round scheduled for August 20, from which the successor to President Alejandro Giammattei will emerge.
“The most important thing is that what the process up to now has done is confirm that the electoral results of June 25, as announced by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, were correct,” said Arévalo, from the Seed Movement, when attending Thursday to a review hearing. The Brazilian government, the first Latin American country to pronounce on the issue, said in a press release on Friday that it took note of the conclusions of the Electoral Observation Mission of the Organization of American States that was in the country. “He assessed that the alleged irregularities in some polling stations are isolated cases, incapable of altering the results of the elections,” the statement on the work of the observers concluded.
Along the same lines, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Argentina spoke late Friday afternoon to emphasize that the electoral processes be “fair and transparent” and to highlight the importance of “respect for the popular will expressed in the polls” with a view to “the second electoral round can be carried out according to the deadlines” provided.
In some revisions, the Boards found votes that did not correspond to a party, annulments because a ballot had not been marked correctly, and tally sheets that were not reported, which were corrected.
In the amparo before the Constitutional Court, the parties presented as evidence 152 tally sheets out of a total of 122,293 drawn up by the Vote Receiving Boards. The official party VAMOS, escorted by the Valor, Cabal, Mi familia and Cambio parties, tried to recover votes or to have a new ballot by ballot counted. In parallel, the Humanist party called for the annulment of the entire election despite the fact that it only obtained 0.6% of the votes.
But the tiny percentage of tally sheets reviewed would not be enough to modify the preliminary results announced by the TSE the day after the elections.
Claudia Ardón, general inspector of that court, explained to journalists that after completing the reviews, the authority that knows the amparo should be informed. The Constitutional Court, which is not competent to resolve, ordered that the file be transferred to the Supreme Court of Justice so that the process can continue.
For the second electoral round, more than 9.3 million Guatemalans are summoned to the polls.
FUENTE: Associated Press
