Sunday, March 01, 2020

Argentina's Fernandez Defends Evo Morales' Presidential Victory











Published 1 March 2020 

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology conducted an analysis of the results of the elections in Bolivia last October 20 and highlighted the legitimate victory of Morales by more than 10 percentage points.


The President of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, ratified his complaint that in Bolivia "the rule of law was violated" after the coup d'etat against Evo Morales and demanded "prompt democratization" in the country "with the full participation of the peop


"According to a report published by the Washington Post and made by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Evo Morales won last year's election by more than 10 points, without any fraud," the president wrote.


In a series of tweets on his Twitter account, Fernández said that "the report disseminated, with singular hardness, criticizes, for its inconsistency, the audit conducted at that time by the OAS (Organization of American States) that concluded in affirming the existence of irregularities in the election that is now claimed".


"As I always pointed out, in Bolivia the rule of law was violated with the actions of the Armed Forces and sectors of the opposition to the then president and with the explicit complicity of the OAS that was called to ensure the full validity of democracy." 


Fernández said: "The Argentine Government at the time (headed by Macri), kept an accomplice silence before such an outrage, ignoring the voices that then rose to preserve the Bolivian institutionality."


The MIT study questions the report in which the OAS once noticed irregularities in the elections and that served as an argument for its secretary general, Luis Almagro, to ensure that there was fraud in favor of Morales.


The day that an advance of the OAS report was published, on November 10, in violation prior to an agreement to disseminate the report later, the then President Morales announced his resignation, and left the country to Mexico, which granted him asylum . 


The Indigenous leader was pressured to leave Bolivia, after the army, along with the police command, asked him to resign, which consumed the coup, orchestrated by the right-wing opposition that did not recognize Morales's triumph in the elections of last october


The now campaign leader of the Movement to Socialism (MAS) of Bolivia remained in exile for a month in Mexico and on December 12, two days after Fernández assumed the Argentine Presidency, he arrived in Buenos Aires, where he requested refuge.


The new elections in Bolivia will be held on May 3 and the MAS candidate, Luis Arce, heads the polls in the face of the elections organized by the electoral authorities chosen by the de facto government. 


Mexico: OAS Must Clarify Audit of Electoral Fraud in Bolivia

Former Bolivian President Evo Morales. | Photo: EFE

Published 28 February 2020

" [...] the Organization must clarify and explain the deficiencies in its report that were announced by these two investigators (MIT),” the Mexican spokesman said.


Mexico will demand the Organization of American States (OAS) "clarify and explain the deficiencies in its report," in which it affirmed the existence of alleged irregularities during the elections of Bolivia in Oct. 2019. This action follows a report revealed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which states that there is no "statistical evidence" of electoral fraud.


RELATED:

A Washington Post Survey Rules out Electoral Fraud in Bolivia

On Tuesday, researchers John Curiel and Jack R. Williams from MIT published an investigation in the Washington Post explaining that there is no statistical support to justify the claims made by the current de-facto government about electoral fraud. Statistics were the central basis in the report presented by the OAS, which claimed fraud.

"Bolivia described its October elections as fraudulent. Our investigation found no reason to suspect fraud," they said in the study conducted by the two investigators.

The spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, Roberto Velasco, spoke on the fact and said that it is not possible to consider that the analysis of both researchers has any political interest.

"From our perspective, given the results of the study, which call into question the analysis of the Organization of American States and what was expressed by its Secretary-General, Luis Almagro, the Organization must clarify and explain the deficiencies in its report that were announced by these two investigators," the Mexican spokesman said.

Given this, Mexico's mission at the OAS will formally request that a "third party" conduct a comparison of the two reports and clarify the discrepancies between them.

The OAS denounced 12 severe irregularities in its report, made six observations, and concluded that it was not possible to give certainty of the results of the Transmission of Preliminary Electoral Results (TREP) after its paralyzation, declaring a potential fraud.

However, the analysis published in the Washington Post states that the OAS does not cite any previous investigation to prove that there was a fraud with the paralysis of the Transmission of Preliminary Electoral Results (TREP), which casts doubt on its submitted report.

Bolivia is immersed in a profound social and political crisis after the OAS report became the tip of the iceberg that led to the resignation of then-President Evo Morales. Since then, a series of human rights violations and political persecutions have been committed, which has led to concern by international organizations like the UN.

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