Amid questions about the reliability of electronic ballot boxes for internal party elections, Senator Derlis Maidana, of the Honor Colorado movement, came to the defense of the Superior Electoral Court (TSJE). In recent statements, Maidana stated that the body has “considerable credibility” and that the political class must be responsible and offer its support to institutions.
The cartist senator's remarks come after dissident Senator Lilian Samaniego, leader of the Causa Republicana movement, publicly denounced the failure to comply with the electoral schedule. According to Samaniego, the technical audit of the voting machines should have begun in February but was never carried out. She criticized the Electoral Court for claiming the participation of a representative from the National Republican Association (ANR) in the controls, arguing that this delegate answers only to the ruling party and not to other sectors of the party.
“The Colorado Party is not Honor Colorado. Today we are about three million Paraguayans. For these internal elections, 51 internal movements will participate; a single movement does not represent the party,” emphasized Samaniego, who lamented not having received any technical report on the status of the ballot boxes.
Maidana, for his part, downplayed the importance of computer audits, stating that the real control is the manual cross-checking of data on election day. “The biggest audit is that the number of ballots in the envelopes must match what appears printed as the result of the electronic ballot boxes,” he argued. He also deflected criticism of the TSJE by recalling alleged “scandalous fraud” in the internal elections of the Authentic Radical Liberal Party (PLRA), accusing that employees linked to Efraín Alegre “voted five times” in the party's last elections. “At least in the Colorado Party, that no longer happens,” he concluded.
Samaniego reaffirmed the position of internal sectors not aligned with cartism, who submitted a formal note to party authorities demanding transparency. She questioned the lack of technical reports and the delay in the audit, which, according to her, leaves the system's computer control adrift.