Guatemala will audit election returns after fraud allegations in the wake of last Sunday's presidential and legislative elections, the country's Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) announced Thursday

Guatemala City, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - APP - 21st Jun, 2019 ) :Guatemala will audit election returns after fraud allegations in the wake of last Sunday's presidential and legislative elections, the country's Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) announced Thursday.

TSE president Julio Solorzano told journalists in the Central American country that he had ordered an audit of certified returns from each ballot box to "clarify disagreements." Speaking at a news conference, Solorzano said the process would begin on Monday. The audit would include municipal and congressional elections held in tandem with the presidential vote.

Center-left former first lady Sandra Torres leads in the presidential polls with 25.7 percent of the vote, ahead of conservative Alejandro Giammattei, with 14 percent.

Both had been expected to contest the August 11 run-off round before Thursday's announcement.

The leftist Movement for the Liberation of Peoples -- whose candidate Thelma Cabrera came fifth in the presidential race -- denounced "evident electoral fraud." Solorzano said he had invited Cabrera and her party to the court to check her complaint.

The tumultuous campaign to succeed outgoing President Jimmy Morales saw two leading candidates barred from taking part in the election and the country's top electoral crimes prosecutor flee the country after threats.

Disturbances broke out Thursday in several municipalities where mayoral candidates rejected the results.

A lawmaker from Morales' FCN-Nacion party, Estuardo Galdamez, went on social media to condemn electoral fraud and said the country was on the brink of becoming a "dictatorship" under Torres' Unity of Hope party.

The Organization of American States (OAS) welcomed the TSE decision, which it said was aimed at "providing greater transparency and certainty in the electoral process, especially in relation to local and legislative elections." The TSE had on Wednesday rejected allegations of fraud in the legislative poll.

The OAS, which sent an observer mission to the polls led by former Costa Rican president Luis Guillermo Solis, had signed off on the election and in its statement Thursday rejected allegations of fraud, despite reporting errors.

"The mission received complaints of vote buying and observed possible voter transport, as well as errors in the digitalization of ballots," it said.

"However, these actions in no way change the popular will reflected in the results of the presidential contest.""The important thing now is to conclude the process, clear all doubts and begin to focus on implementing the recommendations so that the process of the second round is better than the first."One person died and nine police officers were wounded in disturbances that followed the polls last Sunday. </s> CARACAS, April 27 Venezuela's electoral authority said on Saturday the opposition created false hopes about a vote audit being prepared after President Nicolas Maduro's narrow election win, adding that his rival had failed to present compelling proof of foul play.

The National Electoral Council had stressed from the start that the "expanded" audit it agreed to after the April 14 vote would not change the results, which made Maduro the successor to the late socialist leader Hugo Chavez.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles says there were thousands of irregularities during the vote, and that his own calculations showed he won. He says he will challenge the outcome in the OPEC nation's courts.

"We have always insisted that Capriles had the right to challenge the process," Tibisay Lucena, president of the electoral council, said in a televised national broadcast.

"But it is also his obligation to present proof."

She dismissed various opposition submissions alleging voting irregularities as lacking key details, and said Capriles had subsequently tried to present the audit in very different terms than the electoral council had agreed to.

"It has been manipulated to generate false expectations about the process, including making it look like the consequence of the wider audit could affect the election results," she said.

Capriles has said that unless the audit includes all the relevant paperwork from polling centers, his team would not take part in a process that would end up being "a joke."

He has conceded that his legal challenge to Maduro's election faces a difficult path through the South American country's courts. Critics say Chavez packed the judiciary with loyal political appointees during his 14 years in power.

Capriles, a 40-year-old centrist state governor, confounded opinion polls to run a close finish against Maduro in the election, held just five weeks after Chavez's death from cancer. Capriles lost by less than two percentage points, according to official results.

The government blames Capriles for post-election violence that it says killed nine people, and the "Chavista"-dominated Congress is investigating him in connection with the unrest.

On Saturday, security forces arrested a retired general who is now a senior official with an opposition party and was recorded on video apparently advising rioters during clashes with police in a Caracas square a day after the election.

The opposition said the arrest was "illegal and cowardly."

The government also has arrested an American citizen it says was financing opposition student protesters to destabilize the country on behalf of an unnamed U.S. intelligence agency.

Relatives and friends of Timothy Hallet Tracy, 34, described him to U.S. media as a documentary-maker who was in Venezuela to make a film about the presidential election.

Some Maduro allies say the violence was proof that the opposition tried to launch a coup, while the opposition accuses the authorities of exaggerating the trouble and counting victims of common crime among its figures.

Both sides have called on their followers to march again on May 1, creating another potential flashpoint.

On Saturday, Maduro was on an official visit to Cuba to strengthen ties between the two countries. Chavez helped support Cuba's economy after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Maduro spoke at a tribute where President Raul Castro described Chavez as Cuba's best friend, and he signed cooperation accords for 51 projects.

Capriles, who accuses Cuba's Castro brothers of meddling in Venezuela's affairs, criticized the trip on Twitter.

"The Big Connected-One (Maduro) goes to Havana to receive instructions from his Boss. We always said it, there's nothing more powerful that the truth!" the opposition leader tweeted. (Editing by Paul Simao) </s> THE Supreme Court (SC), sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), will start the recount of votes for the electoral protest filed by former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. against Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo on Monday.

The place for the revision of votes for the Marcos-Robredo electoral protest will be at the gymnasium at the 5th Floor of the SC-Court of Appeals (CA) Building in Padre Faura, Manila.

The recount will be conducted until Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with two 15-minute breaks and a one-hour lunch break.

Lawyer Jose Lemuel Arenas, a PET ad hoc committee member, said the revision was the process of verifying the ballots, to recount the votes of the parties, and to record the objections or claims of the parties.

He said there were 5,418 clustered precincts that would cover the three pilot provinces of Camarines Sur, Iloilo and Negros Oriental, which were chosen by Marcos as the best provinces where he could prove the irregularities he cited in his poll protest.

Arenas said for each table, there will be three revisors – the head revisor (employee of PET), the protestant’s revisor and the protestee’s revisor.

The revisors will not be allowed to bring in their personal belongings, including their mobile phones, inside the venue. The PET has provided a locker for their belongings.

He noted that the time limit per ballot box with less than 300 votes would be 5.5 hours while for 300-700 votes would be 8.25 hours and for more than 700 votes would be 11 hours.

The tribunal is expecting some 213 personnel to come in per day during the recount. These include 60 employees of the tribunal, psychometricians, lawyers and representatives of both parties, and the revisors.

The revisors are part of the tribunal’s committee tasked to examine the contested ballots.

Arenas, said that the PET was currently housing some 1,400 ballot boxes from Camarines Sur.

Arenas said that other ballot boxes were currently with the Commission on Elections, due to storage issues.

Once the recount on the first 1,400 ballot boxes is done, the PET will receive the other ballot boxes from Camarines Sur, Iloilo and Negros Oriental.

Members of the Philippine National Police (PNP), the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), the Police Security Protection Group and PET guards will secure the recount venue round-the-clock.

CCTVs were also installed on all four corners of the recount venue and the storage area.

Lawyer Ma. Carina Cunanan, another PET ad hoc committee member, said that the tribunal was expecting to augment 101 security personnel this coming week with more members of the PNP.

She added that the parties would not be allowed to bring in their security.

The PET said it still could not determine when the recount would be finished.

The recount was initially scheduled in February, was later reset to March 19, and again moved to April 2.

Both camps agreed to withdraw all motions they had filed before the PET to be able to proceed with the recount.

Marcos filed the protest on June 29, 2016, claiming that the camp of Robredo cheated in the automated polls in May that year.

In his protest, Marcos contested the results from 132,446 precincts in 39,221 clusters, covering 27 provinces and cities.

In his preliminary conference briefing, Marcos also sought for a recount in Camarines Sur, Iloilo and Negros Oriental.

Robredo filed her answer in August 2017 and also submitted a counter-protest, questioning the results from more than 30,000 polling precincts in several provinces where Marcos won.

She also sought the dismissal of the protest for lack of merit and jurisdiction of the PET.

The high tribunal, in a ruling in early 2018, junked Robredo’s plea and proceeded with the case after finding the protest sufficient in form and substance.

Robredo won the vice presidential race in the May 2016 polls with 14,418,817 votes or 263,473 more than Marcos’ 14,155,344 votes. PNA </s> Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 2) — The vote recount for the 2016 vice presidential election began Monday.

Vice President Leni Robredo attended Mass on Monday ahead of the ballot recount by the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET).

"The recount starts today. Yesterday was Easter, and the biggest lesson is, 'There is always hope in the midst of darkness,'" she said, speaking at St. Scholastica's College in Manila.

She is confident despite what she calls a difficult opponent and trying times.

"Sa dulo ng lahat, parating katotohanan ang mananaig... Wala tayong dapat ikatakot dahil katotohanan ang ating ipinaglalaban. This is the time of fear, pero manalig tayo," she said.

[Translation: In the end, truth will prevail. We shall not fear because we are fighting for the truth. This is the time of fear, but we shall keep our faith.]

The Marcos camp said they are also ready for the recount.

"We are very optimistic because we have waited for two years," Marcos' legal counsel Vic Rodriguez said.

Supreme Court spokesperson Theodore Te on Monday said the manual poll recount will "ascertain the number of votes received by both parties."

The recount begins two years after Marcos brought his electoral protest to the Supreme Court, sitting as the PET. He lost to Robredo by 263,473 votes.

The recount will happen at a gymnasium in the Supreme Court compound in Manila. This is the first time the PET will be doing a recount. The process is off-limits to media.

Rodriguez said Monday morning, the physical condition of ballot boxes and its locks will be checked. The manual recount will begin in the afternoon.

Te said the poll recount will be held Monday to Friday. The morning session will be from 8:30 a.m. to 12 p.m, the afternoon session from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Te said the recount will follow a "strict time limit."

Since the implementation of the automated elections in 2010, Robredo's legal counsel Romulo Macalintal said electoral protests had been dismissed because the results of the manual ballot count tallied exactly with that of the vote-counting machines (VCMs) and the consolidated canvassing system.

"Sa kasaysayan ng ating automated election system, wala pang nananalong protesta sa halalan mula pa noong 2010," Macalintal said.

[Translation: In the history of the automated election system since 2010, there has not been a successful election protest.]

Marcos' camp, meanwhile, took a swipe at Robredo for her alleged moves to delay the poll count.

"We have endured two years of waiting due to Robredo's habitual and intentional moves to delay the election protest and deliberate attempts to bury the truth," Marcos' spokesperson Vic Rodriguez said in a statement Sunday.

He also said the recount will once and for all dispel "all the uncertainty that beclouds the true choice of the electorate and prove that Mrs. Robredo cheated her way to the Vice Presidency."

In its grant of Marcos' plea, the PET decided upon Camarines Sur, Iloilo, and Negros Oriental as the pilot provinces for the ballot recount.

Marcos identified the three provinces as "best exemplifying fraud or irregularities" in his protest brief.

Robredo also listed three provinces in her own counter-protest brief: Capiz, Sulu, and North Cotabato.

The recount in the three pilot provinces identified by Marcos will take up to six months.

Robredo said the protest of Marcos is based on general allegations and manufactured evidence designed to sway results in his favor.

Marcos had also questioned the appearance of "mysterious squares" on ballot images beside Robredo's name, saying it was a proof of fraud.

However, Robredo's camp had explained the squares are the vote-counting machines' way of recognizing a shade on the circle next to the candidate.

The PET has earlier required Marcos to pay P66 million and Robredo P15 million in two tranches to fund their protests and counter-protests. A petitioner needs to pay P500 per contested precinct.

Tedious process

The PET adhoc committee said it can set up only 40 committees on Monday. But they are hoping to open 10 more.

Each committee is composed of a head revisor — a PET employee — and one representative for each of the two candidates.

Head revisors are carefully picked as the revision committees face a huge task which would be performed within a given time frame.

They must process the results of over 5,000 clustered precincts from three pilot provinces chosen by Marcos.

In places where there are less than 300 ballots, they must finish the recount in five and a half hours. For 300 to 699 ballots, they only have a little more than eight hours. And for more than 700 ballots, they are given 11 hours.

Should there be objections or claims by either of the parties, the PET would have the last say.

The tribunal would only issue announcements should the need arise.

CNN Philippines digital producer Ver Marcelo contributed to this report. </s> Haiti Electoral Council Calls for Calm, Promises Poll Results on Monday



PORT-AU-PRINCE Ė Haitiís Provisional Election Council has announced that the results of the countryís general elections last Sunday will be declared on Monday next week.



The council also called for calm as the polling data is counted, requesting both the public and political parties to wait for the final data and refrain from any actions that could exacerbate rising tensions.



Speaking at a press conference Friday, the councilís head Leopold Berlanger stressed that the council is working hard to deliver the results by Monday and is aware that people are waiting but wants to do a good job to prevent another crisis.



The political parties and candidates will have the obligation to respect the electoral decree so as not to create a fresh post electoral crisis, Berlanger added.



The statements came hours after the two presidential candidates, in letters to the council, denounced the existence of alleged irregularities inside the computing centers.



Jude Celestin of the Lapeh party urged the council to be careful in the process of scrutinizing the votes to prevent another post electoral crisis after the one witnessed in 2015.



Maryse Narcisse of the Fanmi Lavalas party alleged that many votes from the polling stations in the capitalís Cite Soleil, where she claims to be strong, have not been taken for counting.



Since Feb. 15, 2016, a provisional government led by Jocelerme Privert has been running the country following the conclusion of the term of former President Michel Martelly without the election of a successor, leading to a political crisis. </s> The Philippine Supreme Court Monday started a recount of the country's vice presidential elections in 2016, after Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos accused Maria Leonor "Leni" Robredo of stealing his victory.

The manual scrutiny of ballots cast in three provinces, began amid strong security in the offices of the Supreme Court's Court of Appeals in Manila and will continue until Friday. </s> Counting was underway in Ghana yesterday after presidential and parliamentary polls closed, in what has been touted a close contest between incumbent John Mahama and his rival Nana Akufo-Addo.

The majority of polling stations closed at 5:00PM on Wednesday, officials said.

The elections come at a time of severe economic decline in the West African country, and amid a volley of accusations of financial mismanagement on part of the ruling party.

For years, Ghana was one of Africa’s most dynamic economies. But it slumped in 2014 as commodities prices fell, and a fiscal crisis widened the budget deficit and elevated inflation.

Akufo-Addo’s New Patriotic Party says the government has mismanaged national finances, including revenue from oil from an offshore field operated by British company Tullow that became operational in 2010.

The government has denied the accusations and urged voters for vote it, arguing that growth would return to at least eight percent in 2017.

“Every Ghanaian should exercise their civic responsibility and come out and vote. The destiny of our country depends on it,” Mahama said as he cast his ballot in the town of Bole, Northern region.

At least 15 million people were registered to vote in Wednesday’s election.

A run-off between the top two candidates will follow if no candidate wins a majority.

Reports showed few voting problems, according to the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers. But voting was re-scheduled for yesterday in Jaman North constituency in Brong Ahafo region because of security concerns and logistical problems.

There are seven presidential contenders, including five minor candidates. In a parallel parliamentary vote, 275 seats are being contested.

Elections in Ghana are famously close races, with Mahama narrowly winning in 2012 with 50.7 percent.

Ghana is considered a beacon of democracy in West Africa, and has a history of peaceful elections.

The government of the day has lost power twice since 2000. But ahead of this week’s election there were reports of voter intimidation. Police said one person was beaten to death, with six others left in critical condition, in clashes between supporters of the two main parties after a rally in the north on Monday.

Meanwhile, hackers have targeted the website of Ghana’s electoral commission ahead of the release of results from a narrowly contested presidential election.

The commission reported the incident on Twitter yesterday, saying it deplored the “attempt to hack” the site, which was offline for a few hours early yesterday.

Despite a relatively peaceful election, tensions are growing after the main opposition New Patriotic Party on Thursday urged incumbent President John Dramani Mahama to concede defeat after the NPP’s internal polling data determined the opposition was poised to win.

The incumbent party denounced the press conference, calling it “irresponsible”, according to local media reports.

Election officials have urged Ghanaians to patiently await the official vote tallies and to dismiss purported results from unofficial sources.-AFP </s> Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission ruled on Thursday that votes cast in the capital Kabul during last October's parliamentary election were invalid, citing fraud and mismanagement. The ruling must be upheld by the Independent Election Commission, the body with overall authority over the ballot, which was marred by allegations of voter fraud, technical problems with biometric voter verification equipment and inaccurate voter lists.

"There were serious outstanding problems in Kabul that could hurt the fairness, transparency and inclusiveness of the election," said Ali Reza Rohani, spokesman for the Electoral Complaints Commission.

More than a million votes were recorded in Kabul, accounting for about a quarter of the roughly 4 million votes cast nationwide. If confirmed by the IEC, the decision would call into question the validity of an election heavily pushed by Afghanistan's international partners.

The recommendation to cancel the vote in Kabul also adds to uncertainty over the April 20 presidential election. Election authorities have said they are considering postponing the vote until July due to organizational difficulties. Any delay to the presidential election could affect hoped-for peace talks with the Taliban, which have opened contacts with the United States but so far refused to talk to the government of President Ashraf Ghani.

Authorities have still not released complete results from the Oct. 20 parliamentary ballot, which saw chaotic delays that forced voting to continue into the following day. </s> KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan’s top election authority on Thursday rejected a ruling by the Electoral Complaints Commission that fraud and mismanagement had rendered invalid the votes cast in Kabul, the capital, during last October’s parliamentary election.

Afghan men line up to cast their votes during the parliamentary election at a polling station in Kabul, Afghanistan October 21, 2018. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

The standoff between the two bodies charged with organising and managing the election highlighted the chaos around a ballot seen as a major test of Afghanistan’s democratic progress that had been heavily pushed by international partners.

“The ruling by the complaints commission is a political, sentimental, unrealistic decision and is not based on credible evidence,” Gulajan Abdul Badi Sayyad, the chairman of the Independent Election Commission, told a news conference.

“We strongly reject the ruling by the complaints commission.”

The ballot, held on Oct. 20 after months of wrangling and delay, was marred by accusations of voter fraud, technical problems with biometric voter verification gear and inaccurate voter lists.

“There were serious outstanding problems in Kabul that could hurt the fairness, transparency and inclusiveness of the election,” Ali Reza Rohani, a spokesman for the Electoral Complaints Commission, said on Thursday.

With more than a million votes recorded in Kabul, or about a quarter of the nationwide tally of roughly 4 million, cancelling the vote there would call into question the validity of the whole election.

The recommendation to cancel the vote in Kabul also fuels uncertainty over the April 20 presidential election, which election authorities have said they are considering postponing until July, due to organizational difficulties.

Any delay to the presidential election could affect hoped-for peace talks with Taliban insurgents, who have opened contacts with the United States but have so far refused to talk to the government of President Ashraf Ghani.

Authorities have still not released complete results from the Oct. 20 parliamentary ballot, dogged by delays that pushed voting into the following day.
After days of disagreements, allegations of electoral fraud and several inconsistencies with the preliminary results of the general election held last Sunday, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal orders a new review of the electoral records and restarts the count.