The Electoral Observation Mission of the Organization of American States (EOM/OAS) installed in El Salvador on the occasion of the presidential and legislative elections on February 4 has shown its concern about irregularities in the final count.
“The Mission has observed a lack of control by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) over the development of this stage in which, on many occasions, the decisions remain in the hands of the representatives of the political parties,” the organization denounced in a statement in which it points out that, although the members of the tables in which the votes are counted had “instructions to carry out their tasks”, the review processes “were not carried out in a standardized manner.”
This is due, according to the EOM/OAS, to the “deficient” training of the people in charge of digitalization, since “in the majority of cases” the content of these instructions “is not known, is not taken into account, or does not respond to the cases that are presented”, which “has caused delays and significant differences in processing times.”
The Mission also pointed out that “the number of security guards established by political party has not been respected” and that the New Ideas Party not only “has a significantly higher number of people than the rest,” but that “sometimes it has assumed an attitude domineering and intimidating against people representing other parties and against observers”, an attitude that the group has “strongly” rejected.
Thus, the MOE has urged the authorities to inform “all parties involved in the scrutiny about the role of observers” and has asked that they “respect the signed agreements that allow its members to carry out the technical work for the who was invited.
Along the same lines, the OAS has emphasized the “fundamental” role of the TSE in the scrutiny process and has required that it “assume control” and guarantee a space of “equity and transparency” for officials, activists, national observers. and international journalists and journalists during the scrutiny and also “in view of the municipal elections that will be held on March 3” so that “what happened in the presidential and legislative elections does not happen again.”