This Monday in the Encuentro interview with Julio Villagrán, the judge of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, Julio Olivo, mentioned that this year’s elections were complex, the most complicated being that of February 4.
He also highlighted that due to the systematic failures of the last elections, another problem that arises is the lack of payment to temporary workers on both election days, but he assured that 90% have already received their payment.
“Since the election was flawed, then a cascade effect occurs, there is a problem of labor rights in the lack of payment of workers… The financial administrator’s report guarantees that close to 90% of the workers who participated in the electoral event have “has been loaded into the system and we are about to complete the last block of payments,” Olive said.
The magistrate mentioned that the changes of reduction of deputies from 84 to 60, and the change in the method of distributing seats, going from the Hare method to the d’Hondt method, is mathematically proven to have reduced the possibilities of the opposition or small parties of get representation in the blue room.
“The OAS mentions that the non-official parties would have obtained 24 seats instead of the 6 obtained with the reform, if the formula had been maintained, the official party would have obtained 44 out of 60 deputies.” expresses Julio Olivo.
On the subject of “ironed ballots”, Olivo explained that the electoral system manages several locks, where there is surveillance by the Attorney General’s Office, the Attorney General’s Office, political party watchers, members of the JRV, there are even international observers, it is for this reason that to The magistrate that electoral fraud had occurred is difficult, but he does not rule it out.
“Unless the ruling party had taken over that table, if that happened we are talking about another unusual situation, the prosecutor’s office will be complicit in that issue, I would not risk saying that the prosecutor’s office participated in that issue, it is difficult but they could have happened, I cannot rule it out.” the magistrate mentions.
Finally, the TSE magistrate expressed that El Salvador is classified as an authoritarian government, but that it is the Salvadoran population that is not interested in living in a dictatorship and approves everything the government does.
““What you should think about is what Salvadoran society wants, you ask the population and they say that they don’t mind living in a dictatorship, they have no idea what a dictatorship is.” says Julio Olivo.