High abstentionism and irregularities mark the general elections in Guatemala

After the closure of the 3,400 voting centers in the 340 municipalities of Guatemala, at 6:00 p.m. local time, the low turnout on election day was revealed: only 54% of the 9.3 million Guatemalans called to vote went to the polls, according to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.

This drop in participation means a drop in citizen involvement in politics since 2019, when in the first round of the presidential elections 61% of the eligible population turned out to cast their vote.

With this Sunday’s election, some 5,000 public positions will be defined, including president and vice president, those of 160 congressional deputies, 340 municipal corporations and 20 to the Central American Parliament.

The counting of the ballots, with five for each vote, is carried out manually by the electoral boards. The Supreme Electoral Tribunal reported that from 9:30 p.m. local time, the polling stations began to upload the tally sheets to the computer center. With 26% of the polling stations counted, former first lady Sandra Torres led the results, with 14.8% of the votes, followed by Bernardo Arévalo (12.7%) and Manuel Conde Orellana, the ruling party candidate (8 ,4%).

However, the final results will not be known until a period of five to eight days.

03:08

At least five municipalities denounced irregularities in voting centers

Both on the eve of the elections and in the early hours of June 25, incidents have been reported in the municipality of San Juan del Golfo, on the outskirts of the capital, Guatemala City.

130 members of the Vote Receiving Boards and the Electoral Board were intercepted by armed men, as reported by the Departmental Electoral Board.

The assailants would have doused the electoral officials with gasoline with the threat of burning them, which would have caused the immediate resignation of the electoral workers, according to the report by Andrés Suárez Jaramillo, France 24 correspondent in the country.

The event jeopardized the ability of polling stations to clearly count the ballots issued and the authorities confirmed that the elections had been suspended in San José del Golfo after the resignation of officials. After that, citizens and riot police clashed outside polling stations as officers tried to disperse them. In this municipality, many inhabitants have asked the country’s electoral authorities to repeat the vote.

“The current mayor is bringing voters and we have doubts about the legality of the process, so an election cannot be held,” Ana Gudiel, a prosecutor for the National Unity of Hope party, told the EFE news agency.

Irregularities have also been reported in four other municipalities. One of them is San Martín Zapotitlán (southeast), where citizens denounced an alleged transfer of voters from another territory and after that they burned various ballots.

In the municipality of Ixchán (north), prosecutors from the Public Ministry seized supposedly false ballots in favor of the Vamos party, of the current president, Alejandro Giammattei.

02:03

Meanwhile, in Malacatán (west), the electoral board resigned due to death threats against its participants and in the department of Jutiapa (east) the media denounced that alleged armed men had entered a voting center.

Candidates also denounce irregularities

The main contenders in the race to replace Giammattei cast their votes at different polling stations throughout Guatemalan territory.

Former first lady Sandra Torres deposited her ballot at the Colegio Verde Valle, east of Guatemala City. Polls prior to the election place Torres at the head of the electoral race, with 21.3% of voting intentions according to surveys, a percentage that is higher than that of his opponents, but that would not be enough to reach the Presidency in the first place. lap.

02:47

The candidate, from the National Unity of Hope party, denounced irregularities at the beginning of the electoral process. “We have had information that the government party is giving away food and there are power outages. We are concerned about anomalies,” Torres told local media.

On the other hand, Zury Ríos Sosa, daughter of former coup dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, cast her vote in the historic center of the Guatemalan capital. She invited the population to participate in the electoral day, in which she seeks to become the next president of the country. “Let’s go out to the voting centers. It is important to exercise our democracy,” said the candidate.

On the other hand, Edmond Mulet, former representative of Guatemala at the United Nations and presidential candidate ranked second in the polls with just over 13% of voting intentions, also charged against the ruling party, accusing it of “using money and power ” to get votes.

“I hope everything goes well. At this time we cannot speculate. Let’s hope that everything happens as normal and that there is no ‘hairy hand’,” Mulet told local media.

With EFE and local media