(Guatemala) The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) of Guatemala announced on Monday that the verification of the minutes of disputed polling stations after the June 25 elections would begin on Tuesday after the denunciation of “fraud” by right-wing parties.
Verification of the minutes will be carried out in the premises of the capital’s electoral operations center, placed under heavy surveillance by police and soldiers, AFP journalists noted.
Nine right-wing parties, including that of outgoing President Alejandro Giammattei, seized the Constitutional Court, the country’s highest court, on Friday.
This ordered the TSE to temporarily suspend the officialization of the results of the vote and the convening of “a new hearing to review the votes”.
In addition to the first round of the presidential election (the second round of which is scheduled for August 20), legislative and municipal elections were held on the same day.
The disputes and the denunciation of alleged fraud in the elections had begun the day after the first round.
To everyone’s surprise, two Social Democrats found themselves at the top of the 22 presidential candidates in the first round, marked by high abstention and a large number of invalid ballots.
A break after three successive right-wing presidencies: Otto Perez (2012-2015), Jimmy Morales (2016-2020 and outgoing president Alejandro Giammattei.
On Sunday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that questioning the elections in Guatemala poses “a serious threat to democracy with far-reaching implications”.
“The measures intended to interfere in the outcome of the elections violate the spirit of the Guatemalan constitution and threaten the legitimacy of the democratic process”, he argued.
The European Union electoral observation mission as well as the Organization of American States (OAS) also called for respecting the will of the voters.
The evictions even before the vote of three favourites, including a leader of the indigenous Maya peoples, had already cast doubt on the fairness of the ballot and the impartiality of the electoral and judicial institutions.
They are accused of maneuvering to preserve an authoritarian and corrupt regime based on co-optation by the ruling elites.
Guatemala is one of the most unequal countries in Latin America, judges the World Bank, with 10.3 million of its 17.6 million inhabitants living below the poverty line and one in two children suffering from chronic undernutrition according to the UN.