Sunday, May 29, 2011

Buzzi claims victory in Chubut complimentary elections as Eliceche admits defeat

Chubut Governor Mario Das Neves announced that his protégé, candidate Martín buzzi, had been elected governor after a decisive complementary election that had to be called due to accusations of fraud in the previous gubernatorial elections that took place last March 20th.

“We won, damn it!” Das Neves exclaimed before an extatic crowd.

Das Neves said that results proved that “the accusations of alleged irregularities in the voting process were false.” 

“Those 69 days of suffering and uncertainty that tarnished the image of Chubut are over,” the governor assured.

“Once again here we are, claiming victory. I would like to thank that 80 percent of the population that went to the polls, especially since many said they would never even make it to 50,” Das Neves stated. 

Buzzi also expressed satisfaction by the election results. “Today we turn the page on a very sad period,” he said.

“Starting tomorrow, we will begin our work because our victory has already been legitimized,” he said. 

“Despite everything that he had to put up with in the last 69 days, we can now say that we will keep working for this province of opportunities,” the candidate said.

Despite the ruling party’s decision to claim victory, official election results are yet to be announced.

Opposition candidate Carlos Eliceche, who was supported by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, admitted defeat as he stated that “he fell short of votes.”

“We consider this 69-day long electoral process to be concluded. We lament that the Electoral Tribunal never gave us a chance to open all the ballot boxes in order to do a vote-by-vote recount, because we know this complementary elections wouldn’t have been necessary that way,” he said, adding that the result “would have been different.” 

He closed by saying that “even though the ruling party assured that there was a 1,500 votes difference, it was actually 400. Had the ballot boxes been opened, the Victory Front would have been the clear winner.”

Almost two thousand voters in Chubut headed over to the polls in order to cast their ballots in a complementary election that took place in the cities of Puerto Madryn, Camarones and Comodoro Rivadavia, in order to determine the next governor of the province.

After an election process that was surrounded by controversy after accusations of fraud, Chubut’s High Court of Justice ordered for the annulment of six ballot boxes and to conduct a limited re-vote in the contested

A total of 1,982 citizens were authorized to re-cast their votes. 

Sources assured that the voting process was moving at a slow pace, since the polling station authorities were checking the ballot box once every five votes in order to make sure that they havdn’t been tampered with and no additional ballots had been added.

Kirchnerite Carlos Eliceche is hoping to reverse the results of last March 20th, but for that he will need to be PJ candidate and Governor Mario Das Neves protégé Martín Buzzi by more than 435 votes. 

Comodoro Rivadavia’s Mayor-elect, Kirchnerite Néstor Di Pierro assured that the complementary elections “are going smoothly,” adding that they reason why they are taking place is because “they didn’t do a total recount of all the ballots, just as the Victory Front Party demanded.”

“Chubut should be entering the Guiness Book of Records. We’re voting in an election that took place 70 days because the province’s ruling party refused to do a vote-by-vote recount. They were afraid to lose,” he stated.