Paraguayan Opposition Candidates Demand Manual Recount of Votes

On Monday, Paraguayan presidential candidates demanded from the Superior Court of Electoral Justice (TSJE) a manual recount of the votes in the elections held on Sunday, when the ruling Colorado Party candidate Santiago Peña was declared the winner.

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Hundreds of citizens protested against an alleged fraud outside the TSJE headquarters in the capital city Asuncion, where police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the people. Citizens also staged protests in Ciudad del Este and Coronel Oviedo.

The mobilizations occurred after the far-right politician candidate Payo Cubas denounced that the Colorado Party, which has controlled this South American country for practically eight decades, carried out electoral fraud.

Other opposition candidates such as Efrain Alegre (National Concertation) and Euclides Acevedo (Political Movement of the New Republic) also requested an audit of the software used in electronic voting, manual vote counting, and the presence of international observers.

The tweet reads, "42 arrested after protests for alleged electoral fraud in Paraguay."

“Given the numerous complaints filed in relation to the elections, we demand that the TSJE immediately carry out a manual count of 10 percent of randomly chosen polling stations in each polling station throughout the country,” Alegre said, adding that the authorities must also hire an independent international audit of the electoral system software.

“We remain vigilant and mobilized. The validity and legitimacy of the results depend on measures to ensure that the data faithfully reflect the popular will,” he pointed out.

After counting over 90 percent of the tally sheets, the TSJE announced that Peña obtained 42.74 percent of the votes, Alegre 27 percent, and Cubas 22 percent. According to the official schedule, the results of the elections will be made official on May 24.