2023-07-13 01:02:02
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — The Guatemalan Supreme Electoral Tribunal officially announced the results of the June 25 general elections on Wednesday, validating what was announced more than two weeks ago and confirming the ballot between the right-wing candidate and former prime Dame Sandra Torres and Bernardo Arévalo, a candidate from the left and a doctor in Sociology, who will compete for the presidency on August 20.
In the most accidental elections of the modern era in the Central American country, which called into question the resistance of the country’s democracy, the electoral authority said that both candidates can officially restart their campaign with a view to the second round, from which the successor to President Alejandro Giammattei.
In plenary session, the magistrates said in the middle of the afternoon that the elections “have met the requirements that they should have and that there are no pending appeals” and, therefore, they proceeded to “declare the vaidity of the presidential election of president and vice president of the Republic” , according to the reading of the agreement made by the secretary of the court, Mario Alexander Velázquez Pérez.
The president of the electoral court, Irma Palencia, confirmed the proclamation of results “so that all citizens can return to the polls to cast their votes.”
Of the 5.5 million votes cast, they also reported that there were 4.2 million valid ones.
The official announcement of the results of the first electoral round, where 22 presidential pairs competed, came after the Supreme Court of Justice rejected the challenges of nine political parties -among them the ruling party and that of Torres herself- due to their disagreement with the recount and with a view to a review of the minutes and even a new vote-by-vote recount, despite the fact that this is not allowed under Guatemalan law.
After several judicial appeals were drawn, including an amparo order from the Constitutional Court to stop the electoral process, the Supreme Court of Justice approved on Monday the review of the minutes made by the electoral boards and paved the way for the TSE to make the results official. .
The parties argued that there was fraud because the tally sheets did not count the votes correctly, they had stains and some had even been lost.
For three days the electoral boards reviewed the challenges, compared them with the data transmission system and corrected errors, which did not alter the result announced by the TSE one day after the second round between Torres and Arévalo.
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