The election to decide the next president of the Argentine Football Association (AFA) is set to be repeated after a botched vote yesterday.
With 75 delegates able to participate in the ballot between Luis Segura and Marceli Tinelli, the count gave an “impossible” result of 38 votes each. One of the voting envelopes included two ballots, allegedly stuck to each other, making it impossible to determine a winner.
Luis Segura (left) and Marcelo Tinelli (right) are competing to become the next AFA president.
“This worries, even embarrasses me,” said Segura, who is also the acting interim AFA president. “We are in a situation that no-one could have imagined.”
“We are surprised,” said Tinelli in a joint press conference with his rival. “It’s incredible as the observers were there. They has generated frustration, annoyance.”
According to observers, there were three envelopes that contained two ballots, but two of them were caught before the full count began.
The observers were quick to claim that the incident was down to a mistake – likely due to the small and thin paper ballots – and not a deliberate attempt to alter the election result.
“This was a human error that, unfortunately, led to a shameful act for Argentina,” declared Alejandro Amor, ombudsman for the city of Buenos Aires and one of the election observers, after the vote. “I ask for apology. It was not an intentional act. There was no fraud.”
Both candidates said they were surprised by the result, which even without the ‘double ballot’, would have given the victor a one-vote winning margin. “We are faced with an unknown situation. The result would have be 38-37, we don’t know in whose favour. In other words, it was practically a draw,” said Segura, who added that he would meet with his opponent Tinelli to discuss the possibility of a union.
However, this morning it was made clear be several AFA delegates that an agreement had not been made and new elections would be called.
Yesterday’s election was the first one since 24 years to have more than one candidate, after the late Julio Grondona served as uninterrupted president from 1979 until his death in October 2014.
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