The Courier has extended the call for tenders for the provisional recount of election results and the growing uncertainty of businesses

The fierce bid for the provisional recount of election results, launched since the end of last year, now adds two weeks of tension in the private sector.

As you may have known Infobae, the Correo Argentino, responsible for the call for tenders for the transmission of the data of the PAHO, the general elections and the poll, prolonged the process of reception of the technical and economic offers until Friday, March 8th.

The offer, which for weeks, has been the subject of a more and more silent offer between INDRA and Smartmatic, the two leading companies looking to keep the business, should begin to be defined next Wednesday with the opening of technical offersfirst the economic ones.

The insured mail spokespersons mean that the extension of the terms is explained by the number of concerns that the agency has received in recent days from companies: more than 110, as they pointed out. In this sense, the receipt of questions will be until Friday, March 1st. Several of the companies interested in the company had not yet been informed after Friday noon.

The company, which in the legislative elections of 2017 stood at 23 million dollars -This year could reach $ 30 million-, is monopolized by INDRA since its victory first call for tenders in 1997 during the administration of Menem. The multinational, of Spanish origin, has retained provisional control during the efforts of Fernando de la Rúa, Eduardo Duhalde, Néstor and Cristina Kirchner and Mauricio Macri. In total, eleven elections.

This year, however, the government has surpbaded INDRA's competitors, led in our country by Ricardo Viaggio, a former member of SOCMA, who was very far from the world, who wanted to open the market. In this opening, SmartMatic, a US-based company based in London and an active participant in the Venezuelan Chavez government's electoral process over the past decade, it appears as the main threat of INDRA.

In fact, while he was able to rebuild this support, the contacts between SmartMatic and those responsible for the current administration have multiplied. There are cross-messages between company lobbyists and members of Mauricio Macri's environment.

According to the call for offers of state mail, "Bidder must prove seniority in election technology for at least ten years" and "an experience recognized by certifications in the successful implementation of election results counting processes with similar characteristics and scope (minimum 90,000 polling stations) at the national and / or foreign level". In the last election, the total number of paintings rose to 98,000.

"The official post of the Argentine Republic will contract the provisional service of the national elections 2019 that allows to perform the loading of polling station results, processing, control, publication and dissemination of calculations at national levels and district, for the elections of national offices (primary, open, simultaneous and mandatory (PASO), general and final of the second presidential turn) and for the election of provincial offices to the provincial legislator, in case of simultaneity, during the year 2019 ", Presents the document of call for proposals intended to diffuse the results" from 21 hours the day of the poll ". The final control is in the hands of the electoral justice.

According to market sources and official mail, besides INDRA and SmartMatic, at least three other companies have expressed concerns about the tender document and would participate in the bid. It is about Magic Software Argentina (MSA) – which increased, for example, with the single electronic voting sector in Buenos Aires in 2015, and that this year would remain with several provincial processes – the Spanish company Jesús Gil Ortega -a former INDRA who left the company, as formally transcended, because of the irregularities detected in the electoral contracts of the elections in Angola several years ago, and Colombia Carvajal technology badociated with Thomas Greg & Sons, in charge of elections in this country.

Camilo Bautista is a businessman who has had legal problems in Colombia and is represented in our country as a representative of the Las Monjitas polo team, last year's finalist at Palermo Open. Thomas Greg & Sons is one of his main sponsors.