For the head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken, the questioning of the elections represents a “serious threat to democracy with far-reaching implications.”
“Actions to interfere with the election results violate the spirit of the Guatemalan Constitution and threaten the legitimacy of its democratic process,” he insisted.
The country’s highest instance, whose rulings are unappealable, accepted on Saturday night an injunction promoted by nine right-wing parties, for which it ordered the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to provisionally suspend “the qualification and officialization of results.”
The groups assure that there are more than a thousand altered records. That number of tally sheets represents 0.82% of the 121,227 processed (out of a total of 122,293) in the scrutiny, according to official figures.
In the general elections last Sunday, the Social Democrats Sandra Torres (15.86%) and Bernardo Arévalo (11.77%) were the most voted among the 22 candidates. The runoff for the presidential elections is scheduled for August 20.
summon a new hearing
The ruling of the highest court specifies that “a new scrutiny review hearing must be called, in which the legitimate subjects may assert the objections and challenges they deem appropriate.”
In addition, it orders that, if it is verified that “the result of the vote could have been altered”, the electoral boards must correct those errors or “analyze if the cases of annulment provided by law concur.”
Among the parties that filed the complaint are the pro-government party Vamos, which nominated Manuel Conde for the presidency, third in the race (with 7.84%), and Valor, which launched Zury Ríos, daughter of the late ex-dictator Efraín Ríos Montt (1982- 1983).
Some 50 people, some carrying Guatemalan flags, arrived this Sunday at the TSE headquarters in the capital to demand a new vote count, considering that electoral fraud was committed last Sunday.
“Today’s protest is because the common citizen has realized that there was fraud, the TSE takes away from us a political party that nobody in the country is, they don’t even know it,” retired military officer Boris Lemus told AFP. who wore a black beret with the shield of the paratroopers unit.
He was referring to the Movimiento Semilla, the party of Arévalo, who gave the big surprise by finishing second because he was never among the favorites but in eighth place in the polls.