MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolivian president agrees with OAS a full recount of Sunday's presidential votes

On Tuesday, OAS announced it would hold a special meeting on on Wednesday to discuss the results of the Bolivian presidential election

Secretary-General of the Organization of American States (OAS) Luis Almagro has accepted the Bolivian government’s invitation to carry out an audit of the recent presidential election in the country, amid controversies over the results.

“My response to Foreign Minister Diego Pary. OAS General Secretariat agrees to carry out analysis to verify integrity of the electoral process in Bolivia,” Almagro wrote on Twitter, posting his official acceptance letter.

On Tuesday, OAS announced it would hold a special meeting on on Wednesday to discuss the results of the Bolivian presidential election.

Earlier on Tuesday, Bolivian Foreign Minister Diego Pary announced at a press conference that his country’s government had sent an official note to OAS inviting it to carry out an audit, to check the entire process of vote counting in the presidential election.

“We are interested as a Government that the whole process has the necessary transparency, that all the votes of the Bolivians count,” Pary stressed, as quoted by La Republica newspaper on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Vice president of Bolivia's Supreme Electoral Tribunal, Antonio Costas, submitted a resignation letter on Tuesday, saying that the suspension of the publication of preliminary election results prompted his decision.

Costas claimed that he had nothing to do with the decision to suspend the publication of results from the Electoral Preliminary Results Transmission System (TREP).

The Bolivian Supreme Electoral Tribunal announced late on Monday that with 95.43% of the votes counted, incumbent president Evo Morales had 46.86%, while his opponent Carlos Mesa 36.72%, leaving Bolivia's current president with a 10.13 percent margin.

To win in the first round of the presidential election in Bolivia, a candidate needs to get more than 50% of the votes, or, as an alternative, at least 40% with a margin of 10 percentage points over his runner up.

Preliminary results released on Sunday showed that there would be a second round of elections.

Based on this and his previous warnings that he feared an electoral racket involving the Supreme Electoral Tribunal packed with Morales named members, Mesa has refused to recognize the Monday election results and has accused the Bolivian government of electoral fraud.