The social democratic presidential candidate Sandra Torres asked the electoral authorities of Guatemala to “officialize” the results of the first round of the presidential election in June whose challenge period expires this Saturday, but was stopped by a new legal action.
“If we adjust to the deadlines set by the Constitutional Court, today the Supreme Electoral Tribunal must go out to make official to the two parties that we are going to the second round,” Torres said at a press conference.
In the general elections of June 25, Torres (15.86%) and Bernardo Arévalo (11.77%) were the most voted among the 22 applicants. The runoff for the presidential elections will be on August 20.
The results were reviewed at the request of several parties that denounced irregularities.
Torres’s call was in reaction to a resolution of the Supreme Court of Justice known on Friday night that ordered the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) not to make the results of the elections official.
The resolution signed only by the president of the Court, Silvia Valdés, ordered the TSE to deliver a report on the procedure used to review the results of the elections.
That report was delivered by the TSE in the early hours of this Saturday, but the Supreme Court must rule on whether that review procedure was carried out correctly and in accordance with what was ordered by the Constitutional Court.
Torres insisted that the TSE “should” make the results official, fearing that the situation “It can get out of control due to a lack of confidence in the process.”
The recount of the electoral records of the elections was carried out after the Constitutional Court, Guatemala’s highest justice body, accepted the provisional protection of nine right-wing parties that rejected the results of the elections disclosed by the TSE.
According to different sources, including several parties that requested the review, the result of the recount confirms Torres, ex-wife of former President Álvaro Colom (2008-2012), and Arévalo, son of reformist President Juan José Arévalo (1945-1951), in the first and second place.
The Constitutional decision was criticized by the United States, the European Union (EU), the Organization of American States (OAS), Brazil and various local academic organizations, the Catholic Church and human rights organizations.
Meanwhile, the Electoral Observation Mission of the Organization of American States (OAS) said in a statement this Saturday that after reviewing the election results, it was able to “verify” that there was no irregularity that could alter the results of the election.
“The Mission verified that, after this process (the review), no serious irregularities were revealed and that no significant changes were registered with respect to the preliminary results of Sunday, June 25,” said the OAS Mission.
This same Saturday, a thousand university students supported by other social organizations in Guatemala, marched in the capital to demand respect for the results of the presidential elections.