EU and OAS observers report ‘no signs of election fraud’ in Sunday’s presidential runoff

As European Union election observers reported earlier, the Organization of American States issued a preliminary report Tuesday afternoon that its team found no indication of fraud in Sunday’s presidential runoff election. “We observed no major irregularities and found the process to be transparent and efficient,” said Heraldo Muñoz, head of the OAS observer team.

Gabriel Mato, left, head of the European Union election observer mission.

On Tuesday morning, Gabriel Mato, EU observer mission leader, said that “Ecuadorians have freely expressed their will” at the polls. “Those who attempt to generate distrust in Ecuador’s electoral institution are doing a disservice to the professionalism of the National Electoral Council and its work to conduct a fair election,” Mato said. “We categorically reject the narrative of fraud.”

A third team of observers from the European Parliament also reported no indication of fraud. “The voting day proceeded peacefully, calmly and transparently with only minor technical difficulties,” said team leader Nacho Sánchez.

The reports of observer teams were delivered as defeated candidate Luisa González continues to claim her loss was the result of fraud. She says her Citizens Revolution campaign will ask for a recount of all ballots.

Following the positive reviews by observer teams, the CNE defended the election, claiming it was one of the “smoothest and best-run” in recent years. In an interview on Teleamazonas, CNE President Diana Atamaint insisted that the election was “totally transparent.” She said that vote counting proceeded at a faster rate than expected, allowing her declare President Daniel Noboa the winner by 10 Sunday night.

During the interview, Atamaint presented the latest election results with 99.5% of ballots counted. “With very few votes remaining to be counted, Daniel Noboa has 55.6% of the votes and Luisa González has 44.4%,” she said, adding that Noboa leads González by approximately 1.2 million votes.

In recommendations to improve future elections, the EU said “clarification” is needed to define when an incumbent president is campaigning and when he or she is performing official state functions. “During this election campaign the separation of these functions was not clearly defined,” Mato said “In future elections, this distinction should be resolved.”

The EU team also said that rules should be applied to social media political advertising. Under current law, rules only apply to print and broadcast media advertising.