Authorities in El Salvador began the final count of votes on Monday in a presidential runoff whose razor-close margin led the conservative challenger to announce his party is on “a war footing” to challenge alleged fraud.
Former leftist guerrilla fighter Salvador Sanchez Ceren of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front held a razor-thin lead in a race with high states for a country that saw 76,000 people killed in its 1980-1992 civil war.
The margin of 6,634 votes was just over 0.2 per cent of the approximately 3 million ballots cast but Electoral Tribunal president Eugenio Chicas said that is likely irreversible.
Mr. Chicas said that votes would be recounted only at about 21 polling places where problems were detected or alleged. The average polling place in the country had about 285 votes.
“The numbers aren’t big enough to overcome the difference, but we should wait for the final count,” Mr. Chicas said on Monday. “The 4,000 challenged votes won’t make up the difference.”
