JCE reveals creation of paramilitary groups to influence elections

SD. The president of the Central Electoral Board, Roberto Rosario, revealed yesterday that in the recent elections there were paramilitary organization made up with the intention of influencing the process and he said that they orchestrated "an imaginary market" of purchasing ‘cédulas' in order to sully the election process.

That was how he said it in a nearly two-hour speech which reviewed the last electoral process in front of hundreds of members of the different election boards from around the country. He refused, later on, to give details of the documents he possessed on the alleged paramilitary groups, reporting only about the creation of one in Monte Plata and another in Andres, Boca Chica.

"Now this is really serious, that they would pretend to substitute the legitimate authority which was the Military Electoral Police, and because of this these elections were so violent, not violent in the sense that there were people killed, but rather all the pushing and shoving," he said.

He recalled that rifles were found in Cotui. "Thank God for His protection, since nothing happened...in another country this could have nearly caused a civil war. I think the parties should grow up," he stressed.

Purchase of ‘cédulas'

Rosario accused other organizations, among which he pointed out Citizen Participation, of developing an "a market that was imaginary and provocative" for buying cédulas in order to justify the complaint that the elections were flawed somehow. He said that the money that was moving around was used in the traditional "movement of voters" which took people to their polling stations, and was sponsored by the political parties.

He said that he felt that this situation caused many very poor citizens to be able to get to the centers where duplicate cédulas were issued, and 395,000 were issued in one month, when in 2010 there were just 180,000 issued in three months and in 2008 there were 172,000 issued in the same period.

Rosario recalled the criticisms by Citizen Participation after the rejection by the JCE of observers proposed for the elections who did not fulfill the requirements. "We know that this situation produced and is producing within this organization a feeling of revenge and of war against the Central Electoral Board, so that we have to be prepared in order to know that this organization will become an enemy of the JCE and we have to be prepared to live with this," he said.

Computer area

The JCE president said that they overcame all the predictions that discredited the election computer center after the resignation of the administrator general of information, Miguel Angel Garcia, who argued that they were creating a parallel computer center. "The parallel computer center does not appear to exist," said Rosario. "What a surprise! (Garcia) is not here and the elections went off quite well," he added. He reported that Anonymous Mexico unsuccessfully attacked the JCE website from 2:49 p.m. on 20 May until 8:00 a.m. on 21 May.