On Saturday, the Constitutional Court of Guatemala, where last Sunday there was a vote to choose the new president, renew the parliament and the 340 local administrations, ordered a check of the votes: the Constitutional Court accepted a request from many parties, including that of Sandra Torres, the candidate of the National Unity for Hope (UNE) party, the most voted in the elections. Torres had obtained about 200,000 more votes than Bernardo Arévalo, who came somewhat surprisingly second with the Semilla Movement, and should have faced the runoff against him next August (none of the candidates had obtained an absolute majority of votes). According to Torres’s party and virtually everyone else except Arévalo’s, there were some inconsistencies in the counting of votes that could invalidate it.
The Constitutional Court of Guatemala, one of the poorest countries in Central America, has said that the electoral authorities will check the votes delivered last Sunday to make sure there are no irregularities, and based on what is concluded, it will decide whether to start an official recount: that would be a rather rare occurrence. The court’s decision was strongly contested by Arévalo, according to whom it is baseless and the result of an attempt by his opponents to manipulate the vote in the elections.
By the nearly completed ballot, Torres had gotten just over 15 percent of the vote; Arévalo about 12. Guatemala is a country where in recent years successive governments have increasingly weakened democracy and the rule of law. In last Sunday’s presidential elections there were also many blank or void ballots in protest against the exclusion of one of the most prominent candidates, the businessman Carlos Pineda, who ran as an independent candidate: the Supreme Electoral Tribunal of Guatemala he had excluded him due to some irregularities in the presentation of his candidacy and Pineda had invited his supporters to vote blank ballot.