The candidate by direct nomination prevails in the contest by the mayorship of Guánica

After a day yesterday that lasted until the wee hours of the morning, the State Election Commission (EEC) concluded the counting of votes in the electoral contest for the mayor of Guánica and certified the candidate by nomination direct, Edgardo Cruz Vélez, as the winner.

In this way, the Creu Vélez makes history by becoming the second person to access the elective office of mayor through the direct nomination mechanism. The first to achieve this was Saints “El Negro Negro”, who in 1988, by direct nomination, became mayor of Cap Roig.

According to the official certification of the EEC, Cruz Vélez prevailed with 2,411 votes against 2,356 of Ismael “Titi” Rodriguez. Rodriguez, who is a member of the Popular Democratic Party, was sworn into office last Monday using as a basis the prior certification provided by the EEC and without waiting for the determination of the Supreme Court which had before him a lawsuit of the choice.

The highest court ruled this week that the EEC should tell all the votes to Creu Vélez of those ballots in which his name appeared regardless of whether or not the voter marked the box corresponding to direct nomination.

The EEC carried out this work yesterday, which lasted until this morning. The counting of votes in the mayoral contest was full of controversy and constant change.

Creu Vélez, in a telephone interview with The New Day and as he was on his way to Guánica, he said he went through a “viacrucis.”

“This ended at 4:30 in the morning and we survived 74 calendar days, between November 3 and today, viacrucis. No one has to go through this process in the next election cycle,” he said. now mayor of Guánica.

He acknowledged that he will now have to do the transition process with Rodriguez, who previously did the same with the former mayor of Guánica, Sants Seda.

Cruz Vélez indicated that today I present before the courts the challenge to the certification of Rodríguez, an action that was necessary to annul the previous certification that he obtained from the EEC. The electoral body, once it issues a certification, cannot cancel it. There must be a challenge to certification because the EEC is appropriate, as explained by the alternate president of the electoral body, Jessika Padilla.

“Today we did it (the challenge) because it had to include an EEC certification with the number of votes we had obtained,” said Cruz Vélez, who before deciding to run for mayor of Guánica by direct nomination tried be the official candidate of the New Progressive Party (PNP) and later Dignity Project.

Precisely, yesterday the electoral commissioner of the PNP, Héctor Joaquín Sánchez had advanced to The New Day that Cruz Vélez was winning in the fight from Guánica.

More controversy in the courts

But Rodriguez advanced, through his lawyer, former election commissioner Lind Orlando Merle Feliciano, who will go to court. He stressed that the EEC, in a motion presented to the courts as part of the case presented by Creu Vélez, certified that “there were no more votes left to award and suddenly, in the morning, an additional 38 votes appear. This is not an allegation of ours, the records are there and we are going to court to ensure that the electoral process is counted in a fair and responsible manner.”.

Merle Feliciano alleged that in the universe of votes registered in the general election on November 3, 1,899 votes were registered in the regular college, but after yesterday’s count of votes appear 1,955 votes.

“We maintain that the final votes of Edgardo Creu Vélez are 2,341 and not 2,411, with 2,386 for Ismael ‘Titi’ Rodríguez, by a difference of 45 votes. This whole situation has been highly irregular. To give an example, for the certification of the mayor Ismael ‘Titi’ Rodríguez, the EEC took 6 days and for Edgardo Creu they issued it immediately “, has maintained.

The challenge to the certification of the mayor of Guánica is not the only one. There are also challenges for the mayors of Aguadilla, Colobra, Barranquitas and San Juan. All candidates who lost contests in the mayoralties have until today, Friday, to file challenges, as provided by the Electoral Code in line with the ten days provided for it after the issuance of official certifications and considering that they were issued by the EEC on 5 January.