Guatemala’s highest electoral court said Friday that the result of this summer’s presidential election won by Bernardo Arevalo is “valid”, “official” and “unchanged”, shortly after the prosecution announced it believed the process should be annulled. due to alleged irregularities in the first round.

The prosecutor’s office had previously called the presidential elections “null and void” in which Mr. Arevalo emerged victorious in the second round in August, igniting the angry reaction of the Organization of American States (OAS), which immediately denounced once again , “coup attempt”.

“The results are valid, official and unalterable” and those elected should “assume their duties” in January, as otherwise it would be a “rupture of the constitutional order”, emphasized the president of the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE). Blanca Alfaro, during a press conference.

He was responding to Prosecutor Leonor Morales, who stated that investigations by prosecutors showed that there were “irregularities” in the process of “counting votes” and, consequently, “the election of the president, vice president, deputies” from a legal point of view is “null and void” as unborn”.

The head of the special prosecution against impunity, Rafael Kuruchitse, next to Ms. Morales, said he intends to “present information” about the alleged “irregularities” to the TSE in the “coming days” to “analyze them” in order to obtain ” decision on the matter”.

Despite statements by Ms. Morales and Mr. Kuručitse that the election results “must be annulled,” Judge Alfaro, the head of the TSE, remained unmoved.

In Washington, the general secretariat of the OAS called on “the (outgoing) president Alejandro Yamate, the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court and the Congress” of Guatemala to “defend the institutions and the constitutional order” and “act” against its perpetrators of the “attack” in order to defend “democracy in Guatemala”.

For the secretariat of the regional organization with 35 member states, “the actions and statements of the prosecutors Rafael Kuruchitse and Leonor Morales constitute an alteration of the country’s constitutional order, a violation of the rule of law and a violation of the human rights of the citizens” of the Central American country.

The attempt to cancel this year’s elections is “the worst form” of breaking with democracy and consolidating “political fraud against the will of the people”, OAK insisted.

Mr. Arevalo, for his part, denounced the maneuver of the prosecutors to cancel the electoral triumph he won in August, at the culmination of what he has characterized for months as an “attempted coup”.

The US and the EU have come out in support of the social democratic politician, who was elected on a promise to fight “corruption”.

In an emergency press conference yesterday, Mr. Arevalo spoke of the prosecutors’ “absurd, ridiculous and perverse” claims and insisted that he intends to take up his duties normally in a month or so, on January 14.

“The coup attempt is real” and has now reached a decisive stage, “we are at a critical moment”, he ruled.

Earlier this month, complying with a court order, the TSE suspended the legal status of the president-elect’s party due to alleged irregularities during its 2017 founding.

For supporters of the president-elect, the new move by prosecutors is part of an effort led by Attorney General Consuelo Porras — who has been blacklisted by the US as “corrupt” — to block the transfer of power.

The prosecutor’s office has also requested that the immunity of Mr. Arevalo and his elected vice-president Karin Herrera be lifted in order to conduct a criminal investigation against them in connection with the occupation of a public university from May 2022.

The president-elect was the day before Thursday at the head of an “anti-corruption” march, which was attended by thousands of people in the capital with a central request to remove Mrs. Poras from her position.

“We are marching in unity for this country that will prosper despite the corrupt,” he said during this “March for Democracy”, which passed parliament, the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court, while supporters chanted “down with the corrupt.”

The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Guatemala expressed after the recent prosecutorial request to waive Mr. Arevalo’s immunity its “concern about actions that seem intended to undermine the integrity of the electoral process and the rule of law.”