Guatemala City, Dec. 8 (EFE).- The elections won by President-elect Bernardo Arévalo in the August 20 runoff are invalid due to alleged administrative irregularities by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, Guatemala’s Attorney General’s Office said Friday.

According to the Office of the Prosecutor General the electoral documents used in the elections are “legally void” because “they were not initially approved” by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.

The alleged invalidation of the election results was announced by prosecutor Leonor Morales in a press conference on Friday, in which she said that the elections for president, legislators, mayors and delegates to the Central American Parliament should be annulled.

The lawyer and elected congresswoman of the Seed Movement, Andrea Zeceña, warned in her social networks that the Attorney General’s Office “does not have the authority” to declare the elections null and void.

In the same press conference, the Attorney General’s Office also accused Arévalo of alleged illegalities in the creation of his party in 2018, in addition to an alleged case of money laundering.

Friday’s accusations are a new attempt by the Attorney General’s Office, led by Consuelo Porras, to overturn the election results that Arévalo unexpectedly won.

Arévalo warned on Sept. 1 that Porras was staging a “coup” against him to prevent him from taking office on Jan. 14, replacing current President Alejandro Giammattei.

Since July 12, the leadership of the Guatemalan Attorney General’s Office, which has been sanctioned by the United States on corruption charges, has been trying to reverse Arévalo’s electoral triumph, even though the law does not allow it to interfere with the results of elections.

Friday’s accusations against the elections, the first round of which was held on June 25 and the runoff on Aug. 20, come on top of others that the Attorney General’s Office has raised in the past against Arévalo and also against the Seed Movement. EFE

jcm/ics