The highest court in Guatemala orders the suspension of the official results of last Sunday’s elections, due to alleged irregularities according to right-wing parties. The Constitutional Court (CC) is the highest court of justice in the country, above the Supreme Court of Justice and its decision is final. The electoral observation mission of the European Union and the Organization of American States asked to respect the will expressed at the polls.
First modification:
The Constitutional Court accepted an amparo this Saturday and ordered the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) to suspend “the qualification and officialization of results so that, by the date scheduled for the second round of the presidential election, everything has been duly cleared up.” according to a statement.
The court reported that nine right-wing parties requested an injunction that sought to prevent the TSE from adjudicating the victory of certain candidates in the elections without first investigating alleged irregularities.
The parties, among which was the official Vamos, filed the appeal against the TSE on Friday “since they consider that there is an imminent risk and threat” of charges being adjudicated before the departmental electoral boards are aware of “the vices contained in the minutes.” scrutiny nationwide, the court reported.
There is also Valor, who nominated Zury Ríos for the presidency, daughter of the late ex-dictator Efraín Ríos Montt (1982-1983). The group denounced on Friday a “fraud” in the elections for the alleged alteration of more than a thousand minutes.
Ríos, who appeared in the polls as one of the three favorites, came in sixth place with just 6.57% of the votes, while the official candidate Manuel Conde came third (7.84%). The governing group Vamos, although it did not denounce fraud, expressed on Thursday in a statement its “concern at the evident finding of inconsistencies between the acts presented and the data computed in different polling stations.”
In the general elections last Sunday, the Social Democrats Sandra Torres (15.86%) and Bernardo Arévalo (11.77%) were the most voted among 22 candidates, and will go to a runoff on August 20.
The protection of the CC specifies that “a new hearing to review the scrutinies must be called, in which the legitimate subjects may assert the objections and challenges they deem appropriate.”
The denunciations of an alleged fraud began one day after the elections when Arévalo gave a surprise when he went to the ballot because the polls placed him in eighth place.
The electoral observation mission of the European Union and the Organization of American States (OAS), after learning of the resolution of the CC, asked to respect the will of the people expressed at the polls.
The EU in a statement reiterated to the “judicial institutions and political parties that they respect the clear will of the citizens freely expressed in the June 25 elections.” The EU, in a preliminary report on June 27, affirmed that “citizens demonstrated their firm commitment to democracy and civic values” by going to vote, but warned about “the deterioration of the rule of law and judicialization for political purposes of purely electoral matters”.
In addition, he called for them to “respect the separation of powers and the rule of law as the only way for disagreements that may arise regarding the electoral process to be resolved in accordance with the law and in compliance with the will of the people deposited at the polls.” .
In the same sense, the OAS expressed itself when urging “the State, Legislative, Judicial, and Executive powers to respect the separation of power, the integrity of the electoral process, as well as the work and conclusions reached in this process.”
with AFP
