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A report by the Electoral Observation Mission of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Guatemala presented this Wednesday highlighted the role of candidates who did not have enough votes to be eligible in the second round of elections in the Central American nation in the destabilization of the country’s democratic process.
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“The Mission considers that the abuse of legal instruments by actors dissatisfied with the results introduced a high degree of uncertainty in the electoral process and put the democratic stability of the country at risk,” said the report presented by the electoral observers it sent. the regional organization for the elections on June 25.
The concern began with the results of the presidential elections, where Bernardo Arévalo de León gave a surprise and positioned himself as one of the two most important political forces in Guatemala, moving on to the second electoral round where he will compete with the former first lady, Sandra Torres, for sitting in the Guatemalan presidential chair.
However, his surprise arrival on the presidential scene caused discomfort among the other candidates who fell short of their presidential ambitions. Multiple dissatisfied parties appealed the election results to the Constitutional Court, which meant that the results of the first round had to be reviewed and were not official for more than two weeks.
Head of the OAS Electoral Observation Mission for the general elections in Guatemala on June 25, 2023 and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Paraguay, Eladio Loizaga, presented the preliminary report of the Mission to the @CP_OEA (1/2) pic.twitter.com/SOPuVyTW4p
— OEA (@OEA_oficial) July 19, 2023
The report presented to the OAS explains that the dissatisfied parties took advantage of “isolated errors” to question the democratic process in Guatemala, since at the end of the review of the ballot boxes, “the final results were almost identical to the preliminary results , with minimal changes.
However, the 90 observers of the mission argued that the first electoral round was a “success” and extended their gratitude to the actors within the Guatemalan public institutions for “defending the integrity of the vote and respect for the popular will,” according to expose the report.
In addition, the observation mission points to the “losers” of the elections for supporting the judicial persecution carried out by the Public Ministry against the “Seed Movement,” Arévalo de León’s party, for an alleged case of corruption. Despite the fact that the judicial authorities ordered the suspension of the party, the Constitutional Court affirmed that the results of the first round would not be affected by the ruling of the Public Ministry.
The second electoral round in Guatemala will take place on August 20, a contest that “worries” the OAS about the judicial situation that the “Seed Movement” is experiencing and that it hopes that “the instrumentalization of judicial mechanisms will not be repeated” for the political purposes of the ruling party.
With AP and EFE
