Bolivia proposes an OAS to audit "one by one the minutes" of the elections

[Akrapovic]

The Bolivian government asked the international organization on Tuesday to send "as soon as possible" a technical mission to La Paz to verify the electoral process, questioned by a surprise suspension of the count last Sunday.

Bolivia asked the OAS on Tuesday to audit the Sunday elections, whose quick count tends to confirm the re-election of President Evo Morales in the first round, which triggered protests in the country, criticism abroad and the call for an extraordinary meeting of the continental organism

In a letter to the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, Bolivia is "requesting that, as soon as possible, it can establish a commission that will audit the entire process of official computation of the votes of the October 20 elections, "Pary said at a press conference.

"We are interested as a government that the whole process has the necessary transparency," he insisted.

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The idea is that the OAS "can prepare an official audit of the current electoral process, that is, that it can verify, that it can audit the entire process of official counting," he added.

The chancellor's announcement follows an OAS convocation to an extraordinary session of his Permanent Council on Wednesday on Bolivia, where the questioned advantage of President Evo Morales in the elections in which he seeks a fourth consecutive term generated violent protests.

The questions lie in the fact that two days after the elections the TREP fast count does not culminate, which on Sunday night anticipated a ballot and after an inexplicable 20-hour shutdown it resumed showing a "drastic and difficult change to justify the trend", predicting the reelection of Morales in the first round, denounced the OAS observers.

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The president, in power since 2006, would avoid voting if he obtained in the first round more than 50% of the valid votes or 40% with at least a 10-point advantage over the second.

In the TREP, Morales receives 46.4% and former president Carlos Mesa 37.07%, with 95.63% of the minutes. This telephone system serves to guide the trend of the final official calculation, but it is not official.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) advanced on Tuesday in the official calculation to 83.87% of valid votes, in which Morales was ahead with 43.64%, followed by Mesa with 40.01%.