GUTIERREZ PARTY ON ELECTION FRAUD

C O N F I D E N T I A L QUITO 000329

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: TWENTY YEARS
TAGS: PGOV EC
SUBJECT: GUTIERREZ PARTY ON ELECTION FRAUD

Classified By: AMB Heather M. Hodges for reason 1.4 (D)


1. (C) Gilmar Gutierrez, a Patriotic Society Party (PSP)
National Assembly candidate and the brother of former
president and 2009 presidential runner-up Lucio Gutierrez,
met with DCM and PolCouns on May 6, at Gutierrez' request.
He showed us election documents indicating a variety of
different types of irregularities. These included changes
shown in pairs of printouts from the National Electoral
Council website of the same precinct's results, which
appeared to have occurred during the middle of the night. He
also had documents indicating more votes in one precinct than
voters, and different signatures and vote tallies on what
should have been carbon copies of the same precinct vote
results. All alterations Gutierrez shared with us were in
favor of President Correa's Proud and Sovereign Fatherland
(PAIS) movement and against PSP, without changes in the vote
tallies for other parties.


2. (C) Gutierrez said he was not trying to argue that his
brother Lucio had come out ahead of Correa, but that the
margin of Correa's win would have been enough less to force a
second round. He indicated that PSP had already presented
its complaints to the National Electoral Council. Gutierrez
told us about two cases where the National Electoral Council
attributed the problems to computer system error and
corrected them. He said the National Electoral Council had
agreed to allow PSP to conduct an audit of its computer
system, but would not agree to a vote recount.


3. (C) Gutierrez expressed doubts about the impartiality of
the National Electoral Council established under the new
constitution, alleging that all members depended on the
Correa government. He was similarly skeptical of the
validity of pre-election polls. Gutierrez said PSP had also
met with the EU, but not the OAS. So far it had not taken
its complaints to the Prosecutor General or the Electoral
Disputes Tribunal.


4. (C) Comment: The documents Gutierrez showed us were
worrisome. How many of the irregularities resulted from
inexperience, sloppiness, or computer programming errors
rather than fraud is impossible for us to judge. While
correction of the irregularities likely would not alter the
presidential outcome, it might make a difference in the
composition of the National Assembly.

HODGES