Dilute the bid to see who will count the votes in the elections

The call for bids that will define the company that will be responsible for the provisional recount of the votes in this year's elections It was postponed for two weeks. The reception of the offers, which was to take place next Wednesday, It was launched for Friday, March 8th. Therefore the underground fight that the companies involved promise to continue escalating with cross-charges and uncertainties due to an unprecedented process over the last twenty years.

Up to now, four companies seem to be contenders, although their number may increase or decrease at the time of bidding. The Spanish Indra operates this contract since 1997 without interruption, always with questions for which the documents of submission were armed. In fact, in 2017, one page of the text said that a specific task was carried out by "Indra". Market sources indicated that this was due to the fact that the list had been reviewed by different internal sectors of the Argentine postal service and by the government, which they took notes in the project and "forgot to delete one". Others are wary. The company rejects all the criticism recalling that of the eleven elections it has organized, out of 7 won the opposition.

The most powerful competitor is Smartmatic, a US-based company founded by Venezuelan businessmen.

He grew up in the heat of Chavismo's electoral organization since 2004 (he replaced Indra), but ended up carrying a heavy blow to the Maduro government when he denounced the fact that constituency figures of 2017 did not coincide with more than one million electors.

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Another company that would enter the fight is the Colombian Thomas Greg & Sons, who organized the elections in this country. President Juan Manuel Santos He was part of the board of directors of this company, which is always remembered by those who report irregularities in the vote. The company was founded by Thomas Gregorio Bautista and it is their three children who make the signature. One of them, Camilo Bautista, is mentioned as an operator in Argentina. The companies that are known to him are the Las Monjitas polo team and a stud farm from which two horses who competed in the last Pellegrini prize have come from. He was imprisoned for a short time, involved in a scandal with a former partner.

Scytl, from Barcelona, ​​has also set its sights on the call for bids.

It came from Jesús Gil Ortega, a former leader of Indra who was part of the operations in the country over the last twenty years. It was managed by Indra just after the company's price in Angola was reviewed (Hacienda closed this deal). Scytl won the Spanish election ballot in Indra in 2015. It offered a better price.

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The local MSA, which has organized the elections with electronic voting in the city and Salta, also speculates to present. He has difficulty not meeting the requirement of having an antecedent with more than 90,000 tables, but he still evaluates the competition.

Until March 1, companies can continue to ask questions about the call for bids for which bids close to 30 million US dollars are expected. Already more than 110 consultations have been received, which has led to delaying the process. Meanwhile, the lobby and cross-charges will continue.

Indra is invoked to justify supposed payments of bonuses to Spanish politicians.

A Smartmatic with his link with Chavismo, although now others like won the call for tenders in Los Angeles they link her to the CIA (During the past year, he has also moved to London, Norway and Denmark). To Scytl to be in "Blacklist" in Ecuador after having delayed the dissemination of the results by one week. And to Thomas Greg for doubts about his shareholding structure.

This fight raised a suspicious question from one of Correo Argentino's competitors. He wanted to know if he would be asking questions about all the controlling companies of the bidders, "To know in all clarity who the person or group of people will be hiring."