2023-07-11 23:53:15
Guatemala will have its second round of presidential elections on August 20, after the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) confirmed that the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) fulfilled the task of carrying out a second review of the votes.
On Monday, the Constitutional Court rejected the last pending amparo appeal that sought a new review, this time of each of the votes, requested on Friday by the parties Change, Value, All and Commitment and Renewal and Order (I think). It was the response to the recount of votes that ended a day earlier and ratified that the second round must be disputed between former first lady Sandra Torres, supported by a conservative alliance, and Bernardo Arévalo, son of former reformist president Juan José Arévalo (1945-1951). . In this way, the way is cleared to carry out the presidential runoff on August 20 without problems.
The stumbling block had been generated by the order issued by the Constitutional Court of the CSJ by accepting several judicial appeals presented by almost a dozen political parties that expressed their distrust in the results of the first electoral round that ended with Torres in first place and the leftist Bernardo Arévalo in second, despite starting eighth place in the pre-election polls. The June 25 elections also had more blank votes than for any of the candidates in contention.
The CSJ spokesman, Rudy Esquivel, assured the press that the declaration as “inadmissible” allows the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to proclaim the winners of the first round of the presidential elections. “The execution of the provisional amparo is unanimously declared void.” “The second round will take place on August 20 because that is the date that we have set forth in the decree calling for elections,” said magistrate Gabriel Aguilera at a press conference held at the headquarters of the electoral tribunal.
«We have stopped so that the second round takes place on the scheduled date; continue to trust the electoral authority, we are doing our best to continue guaranteeing custody of the vote. This election is won or lost at the polls, and that is where they are invited on August 20,” said Irma Palencia, TSE’s presiding magistrate.
The electoral magistrates detailed that they are waiting to conclude some internal processes to make official the results of the first electoral round held on June 25.
The local investigative outlet Plaza Pública analyzed the 161 certificates presented as evidence to allege fraud, of which only 18 had notable inconsistencies with various erasures, including 15 that were illegible. According to the publication, the Constitutional Court “endorsed unsubstantiated evidence”, since “most of these had formal errors, not substantive alterations. For example, cross-outs and corrections made in the vote registration lines that were later corrected in that same document. There were also erroneous sums that were rectified under the surveillance of political party prosecutors at each polling station.
According to Plaza Pública, the number of documents with inconsistencies represents 0.01% of the total number of minutes in which the first electoral round is held. “Another piece of information obtained with the review of the evidence under the protection of the CC is that, of the 161 attached records, only five were challenged on election day, in which only nine votes were refuted.”
Already in 2019, a report from the consortium of election observation organizations, Mirador Electoral, explained that rulings like these are often simple errors, sometimes due to lack of training of the Vote Receiving Boards.
The president of Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei, issued a statement stating that he will respect his constitutional term and hand over power to whoever wins in the second round that he called for it to be held on the previously stipulated date.
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