“When something does not go well, you should keep quiet and apologize,” this is how the president of the Central Electoral Board (JCE), Julio Cesar Castaños Guzman, began his speech at the opening of the public hearing and plenary session of the JCE with the delegates of the political parties on Wednesday, 20 February 2020, to discuss issues related to the extraordinary municipal elections now called for 15 March.
“When one fails one must recognize it and ask for forgiveness and that is what there is, there was a failure. It’s not to defend myself, but I was told that the problem of the loading of the ballots was something simple and that it was easy to solve. Well, we realized that it was not,” said Castaños Guzmán during the public hearing with political parties. The public hearing was called at the request of the political party delegates. He said he would not resign.
He announced that after the eight-hour public hearing it was decided that the printed ballots used in the aborted 16 February election would be incinerated. It was also decided that the deadline for alliances would be extended. The deadline had originally been set for 17 February, then before the 16 February election it had been extended to 19 February. The new date for the alliances is 25 February 2020.
Read more in Spanish:
Listin Diario
Diario Libre
Diario Libre
Diario Libre
20 February 2020