Paraguay: Electoral Body Rejects Fraud Allegations

Paraguay’s Superior Court for Electoral Justice (TSJE) has rejected allegation of fraud advanced by the leadership of the Ganar Alliance and reiterated its trust in the Preliminary Electoral Results Transmission (TREP) system used during the election. 

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Since results of the general election held on April 22 were announced, handing a narrow 3.7 percent victory in the presidential election to the Colorado Party's candidate Mario Abdo Benitez, members of the Authentic Radical Liberal Party and the Guasu Front, the two main parties within the Ganar coalition have highlighted several irregularities in the electoral process.

The main charge against the results is that the TREP system, operated by the Electoral Justice has presented a lower number of votes for Ganar coalition candidates and these figures are smaller than the data registered in the original count.

In some cases, TREP sent documents in which the Ganar coalition has zero votes when the original tally sheets show otherwise.

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The legal challenges over the alleged irregularities were announced Wednesday. On Thursday Jaime Bestard, the head of the TSJE, who is also a member of the Colorado Party said the issues highlighted were minimal and that the evaluation currently underway will confirm the results sent by the TREP.

"I am 100 percent sure that there will be no variation. I mean for president, vice president, and governors,” Bestard said during a press conference Thursday. “I think there is no error in the TREP. What can happen is that in some place in the republic someone made a mistake in numbers… and that there is no coincidence in the tally sheets. But I assure you it will not reach 0.3 percent of the vote.”

During a press conference Wednesday presidential candidate for the Ganar coalition Efrain Alegre announced they will wait for a “vote by vote” evaluation, before recognizing the results and confirmed the group had sent a letter to the Organization of American States (OAS) and the European Union detailing all the irregularities detected in Sunday’s national elections.

Fraud accusation by opposition parties and citizens' complaints about errors in transcription and vote recount during the closing of the polling stations Sunday led hundred to protest outside the electoral body's headquarters.