OAS Calls for Honduran Election to be Redone

OAS Calls for Honduran Election to be Redone
Fecha de publicación: 
18 December 2017
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“The people of Honduras deserve an electoral process that confers them democratic quality and guarantees,” said OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro in a statement.

The Organization of American States, OAS, called for a new round of elections Sunday to guarantee voter rights are being respected and the procedure is being observed.RELATED: Honduras Election Court Sides With 'Fraud' Candidate Hernandez as Protests Rage On

The Electoral Tribunal announced Sunday, the results of the recount, saying presidential candidate and incumbent leader, Juan Orlando Hernandez had won by 1.53 percentage points. 

However, the OAS electoral observer mission said Sunday that though it could not confirm that the election had been “intentionally manipulated”, the process was filled with suspicious inconsistencies.

“The people of Honduras deserve an electoral process that confers them democratic quality and guarantees,” said OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro in a statement. He added: “The electoral process that the tribunal concluded today clearly did not provide that."

The OAS said the only way for the Hondurans to be properly represented and for the victor to reflect the votes of the people would be to conduct a new election that adheres to the strictest measure of the law.

The inconsistencies of the TSE’s review process were discussed during a late press conference with the Electoral Observation Mission (EOM). According to the foreign delegation, the 82 experts had not ensured that the necessary precautions had not been taken to guarantee it’s integrity.

The OAS observers encouraged Hondurans to “remain calm and act responsibly”, assuring that the issue will be resolved, denouncing the number of deaths and injuries which have resulted from a series of violent protests around the nation.

However, the European Union election observers have stated they did not encounter any irregularities in the process.

RELATED: Nasralla: Fraud Before, During and After the Elections

“After comparing a large random sample of voting records provided to us by the Alliance and the original records published on the tribunal’s website, the mission observed that the results presented practically no differences,” said Jose Antonio de Gabriel, the adjunct head of the EU’s mission.

For his part, the opposition candidate, Santiago Nasralla, expressed through a video posted on Facebook that "It is clear that there was fraud before, during and after the elections. (...) The President of the Republic at this moment is an impostor, and the Honduran people know it ".

Nasralla called for a resurgence of protests Monday. The leftist candidate arrives in the United States and plans to meet with Almagro as well as members of the State Department and human rights organizations to denounce the alleged fraudulent elections and solve the current political crisis.

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