Electoral authority validates results and calls for presidential second round

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) of Guatemala valid this Friday the results of the scrutiny of the general elections of June 25 and called the second presidential round to choose between Sandra Torres, of the National Unity of Hope (UNE), and Bernardo Arévalo, of the Seed Movement, to lead the Central American country for four years from next January.

With this announcement, made by the plenary session, the agreement of recent Wednesday was made official, which was followed by a political earthquake promoted by the Public Ministry and a first instance judge, who they tried to cancel the legal personality of the Seed Movement, which posed an unprecedented constitutional crisis in the country.

“Both parties can carry out an electoral campaign up to 36 hours before August 20,” explained the president of the TSE, Irma Elizabeth Palencia, according to the body that directs the elections.

Once the situation is resolved -in principle- the candidacies of the candidates for the first magistracy of the State as well as the vice-presidency of the country postulated by the two political organizations are made official. “Deriving that no presidential template obtained an absolute majority, the second electoral round will be held,” said Palencia.

The TSE also reported that it calls for a repeat of the local elections on August 20 in five municipalities of the country where incidents were recorded on June 25, such as burning ballot boxes and other incidents that led to the suspension or annulment of the process.

The head of the TSE thanked the Guatemalan population for “the understanding in the delay” to make the results official, and assured that this situation was out of the control of the court and that it was not “any malicious delay”, since they should have adhered to the mandate of the Constitutional Court that ordered a repeat of the count of the votes

This “affected both the officialization and the time due to the repetition of the review hearings, increasing the work of the Departmental Electoral Boards,” explained Palencia, to which was added the legal actions on Wednesday and Thursday.

Neither the presidential candidates nor their political formations have yet spoken about the officialization of the results and the plans to follow for the second electoral round.

votes counted

Sandra Torres, from UNE, starts from scratch in the race for the second round after having obtained 888,924 votes in the first round, followed by Bernardo Arévalo, from Semilla with 653,486 valid; the rest of the political parties in contention were well below half a million votes.

The officialization of the results also indicates that null votes totaled 964,775. The valid votes in the contest on June 25 were 4 million 212,460 from an electoral roll of more than 9 million citizens summoned to the polls.

Arévalo and Torres set out with this starting banner to win over followers in a panorama where -according to political analysts- “fed up” by political parties predominates and where the majority of citizens rejects corruption and impunity rooted in the public apparatus.

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