TSE Rejects ARENA’s Last Appeals, Announces Closure of Electoral Process

TSE Magistrates announced their decision Monday night

by CISPES

On the evening of Monday, March 24, El Salvador’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) officially closed the books on the 2014 presidential elections, announcing its dismissal of the last of ARENA’s appeals and declaring the results firm and final.

TSE Formally Announces Sánchez Cerén As El Salvador’s President-Elect; ARENA Will Continue To Contest Results

by CISPES

On Sunday March 16^th, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) formally announced that FMLN candidate Salvador Sánchez Cerén is El Salvador’s new president-elect. Although the final review of the elections results finished on March 12^th, giving the FMLN the win 50.11% to 49.89%, the TSE was first obliged to respond to a series of formal petitions filed by the ARENA party calling to annul the elections before officially declaring a winner.

Rep. McGovern becomes 2nd congressperson to support the Electoral Tribunal

By CISPES

Joining Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA), Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA) is now the 2nd U.S. congressperson to publish a statement commending El Salvador’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) for its “professionalism” and calling El Salvador’s elections “orderly, peaceful, free and fair.” McGovern also called on all political parties exercise “patience, calm and professionalism.” Rep. McGovern’s statements come as a result of a grassroots campaign to bolster international support for the TSE as it faces a right-wing assault from the losing ARENA party. Call your representative to ask that s/he join Reps. McGovern and Moran in making a public declaration in support of democracy in El Salvador.

Read the full text below.

Groups gather to applaud electoral authority

by CISPES

Photo: ContraPunto

Yesterday morning, with the final vote count finally finished, social movement organizations and civil society groups gathered at the Salvador del Mundo monument in San Salvador to celebrate that the count was finished and to demand that the country’s democratic institutions be respected.

U.S. Congressman applauds the Electoral Tribunal for final vote count

By CISPES

Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) issued this bilingual statement  congratulating the Salvadoran people on their democratic election, applauding the Supreme Electoral Tribunal for its impartial and transparent management of the elections – especially the final vote count – and expressing his enthusiasm to continue good relations with El Salvador’s next president.

Read his full statement below:

Special Report: ARENA Mobilizes Against TSE

With the FMLN party maintaining what the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) has called an “irreversible,” if narrow, lead in the final vote count for El Salvador’s March 9^th presidential election, the opposition ARENA party has turned to destabilization tactics, fomenting unrest and misinformation in an effort to contest the election results. On the night of Monday, March 10^th, ARENA sent out a massive call on social media to mobilize its militancy for a demonstration the following morning against the TSE. Claiming themselves the victims of a massive electoral conspiracy, ARENA called on its militancy to denounce the TSE’s process as corrupt and demand a vote-by-vote recount.

International Observers Attest to Robust and Transparent Democratic Process

Representatives of the CISPES and SHARE observer missions report to the press

On Tuesday, observers from CISPES and the SHARE Foundation held a press conference for the Salvadoran media to share their observations and evaluation of Sunday’s election, in which a record number of Salvadorans participated to elect their next president. Voter turnout was over 60% and, according the preliminary results, the winning candidate, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, received the highest number of votes of any candidate in the country’s history (over 1.4 million).

Electoral authority informs diplomatic corps about elections

by CISPES

Today the president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, Eugenio Chicas, as well as the Minister of Foreign Relations, Jaime Miranda, gave a presentation to over 50 ambassadors of foreign nations and heads of international organisms stationed in El Salvador to inform them about the elections.

Chicas highlighted the transparency of the result transmission process, in which copies of the original vote counts recorded at voting tables were given to representatives of the Attorney General’s Office, the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office, and the competing political parties. 

Democracy Now! CISPES Report on tense results of March 9 presidential election

From Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/2014/3/10/leftist_ex_rebel_holds_narrow_lead

Both candidates have claimed victory in El Salvador’s presidential election after a preliminary count showed the vote was too close to call. The race pitted the governing party’s Salvador Sánchez Cerén against the right-wing candidate Norman Quijano. Sánchez Cerén, a former rebel commander, was running to replace Mauricio Funes, marking the first time an FMLN candidate succeeds another after decades of right-wing governments. Sánchez Cerén was seen as the favorite coming in but the latest results show him ahead less than 1 percent. We go to El Salvador to speak with Laura Embree-Lowry of CISPES, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador.

The Right Continues Attempts to Undermine TSE

Right-wing protesters outside of the TSE (Photo: La Prensa Grafica)

by CISPES

Attacks attempting to discredit El Salvador’s electoral authority, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), have increased in recent weeks.  Most recently, lawsuits have been filed with the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court that question the constitutionality of TSE magistrates Eugenio Chicas and Walter Araujo. In addition to the Supreme Court cases, ARENA activists have staged a series of protests outside the TSE and submitted a formal complaint against the TSE to the Attorney General’s Office for an unrelated issue earlier in the month.  Considering that the official Organization of American States (OAS) observer mission as well as international observer missions invited by civil society groups and even the U.S. Embassy have highlighted the transparency and fairness of the February 2^nd electoral process, the efforts to discredit the TSE seem out of place. With polls showing a likely victory for the FMLN in the March 9^th runoff election, the attempts to cast doubt on the integrity of the TSE appear to be laying the groundwork for later questioning the legitimacy of the expected leftist victory.