![]() ![]() The matter was still unresolved by Thursday afternoon - less than three days before the vote. Palencia told Prensa Libre on Monday that the magistrates had yet to deliberate on how to handle the juntas’ alternate system. Party representatives claim that recent test runs showed multiple problems, including the possibility to edit votes already uploaded in the servers. The two districts have purchased their own systems for the last several electoral cycles, without complaint from any parties until this year. “We couldn’t persuade them” to use the same system, said TSE President Irma Palencia - in recognition that each district, or junta, is autonomous from the TSE. Both the selection of Datasys and the university drew broad criticism from transparency watchdogs.Īdding to the mayhem, the districts covering the capital city and department -amassing almost a quarter of the country’s 9.37 million registered voters- purchased their own system to tally the votes. Their work will be audited by Mexico’s Technological University of Monterrey, despite a reported contractual relationship between the two. Mexican-Costa Rican firm Datasys -which has done business with the Guatemalan state since 2017- was selected in February to handle electronic vote reporting for $18.9 million USD, despite being the pricier of two offers and having been discarded by Colombian election officials due to criticism of its business practices. It gets worse: Surreally, with under a week to go before the first votes are cast, the TSE said on Tuesday that it was still mediating spats over which electronic systems would count the votes. It is the appearance of a democratic exercise.” “The captured system decides which candidates participate. ![]() “The elections in Guatemala are a farce,” former attorney general and excluded 2019 presidential candidate Thelma Aldana told El Faro English. Per Prensa Libre’s last pre-election poll released Thursday, this emptying-out of the playing field has left former first lady Sandra Torres in first with 21 percent and diplomat Edmond Mulet in second with 13, followed by arch-conservative Zury Ríos with 9 and Giammattei’s anointed candidate Manuel Conde with 6. ![]() Not to mention that in the presidential race there is no sign of equal opportunity to compete: the daughter of a coup president is allowed to run despite a constitutional ban while the most prominent Indigenous leader was barred because of lawfare against her running mate.Īnother two candidates, including controversial frontrunner Carlos Pineda, were expelled with the race already underway. ET this Sunday, June 25, allegations against the Tribunal are the pinnacle of Guatemala’s political and electoral crisis.Ī joint journalistic investigation coordinated by Ciclos CAP found that Giammattei used “selective assignment of public works, an increase in subsidies to senior citizens, and possible influence-trafficking” to vastly expand his party’s slate of mayoral candidates. With general elections set to begin at 9 a.m. Now they have a monthly stipend and that’s why they listen to the president.”Ī possible example of Giammattei’s hand in the TSE is an audio of an ex-president of the National Association of Municipalities in which he denounced maneuvering by Giammattei to use the TSE to blackmail a party -Prosperidad Ciudadana- into listing as congressional candidates a number of Giammattei’s pawns. In a February radio interview, former president of Congress and current opposition legislator Mario Taracena said: “the TSE receives monthly cash under the table, and that’s something I’ve never seen in my life. The account that Giammattei has quite literally put cash on the table at the TSE has circulated for months in Guatemala City and Washington, D.C. Another asserts that Alfaro intended for the embassy to keep the money as supposed proof of the bribe, but that the U.S. One of them, present at the meeting, sets the date as March 22, 2022. “This is something malicious that they’re doing in order to destabilize the elections,” said Martínez.Įl Faro English has received separate confirmation by three sources that the Embassy meeting happened. official and a source present in the meeting, both anonymous. In a Samuel Alito-style move, Martínez tried to head off the article, published Thursday night: “When the investigation comes out, don’t be surprised,” he said. Embassy last year and presented “a cash package” -50,000 quetzales about $6,000 USD- that he allegedly gave her and other magistrates on behalf of President Alejandro Giammattei. On Wednesday Miguel Martínez spoke to journalists about an explosive New York Times report: that Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) magistrate Blanca Alfaro went to the U.S. It was Giammattei’s closest operator who broke the news. El Faro is an investigative newsroom that shines a light on corruption in Central America. ![]()
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