Guatemala City, by Kevin Castillo -AGN- During the extraordinary session of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States -OAS-, the electoral observation mission highlighted the work of the elections in Guatemala.
During the meeting, the OAS Electoral Observation Mission Chief, Eladio Loizaga, submitted the preliminary electoral process report to the Permanent Council.
The second round of elections took place on August 20. In this round, more than two million Guatemalans cast their vote.
Participation
Loizaga mentioned,”I want to start by expressing once again my appreciation to the Guatemalan people for their civic commitment, which was reflected in an election day that was a true democratic celebration.”
He also greeted the State and security institutions that ensured the smooth second election runoff and stated: “From the OAS mission, we highlight the work of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, of the people who formed the voting committees, of the departmental and municipal electoral authorities, of the party observers, and of all those who made it possible to carry out a successful electoral process.”
The OAS has been monitoring the electoral process in Guatemala continuously and permanently since May.
Electoral Observers
The support of the OAS observer mission was available for both rounds of elections.
For the electoral runoff, the mission consisted of 86 observers and specialists from 23 nationalities. They were present in all 22 departments of Guatemala and Washington, D.C., United States.
The mission participated in every step of the process, from installing polling stations to counting votes from 1,345 voting boards. Electoral Observation Mission Chief Loizaga highlighted that during election day, the mission observed that the voting took place normally and peacefully, and that both parties had a strong presence of representatives.
The mission recently presented its preliminary report after the presidential election runoff on August 20.
