ELECTION 2006
World Press Wrong About  Presidential Elections
Since early Sunday night headlines on many internet press sites and world newspapers, including Yahoo and Google news, named Oscar Arias as winning the presidency. Some used poll results, stating Arias winning by 44% of the vote.

The polls closed at 6pm Sunday night. Twenty four hours later the Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones (TSE) announced it would not make the results official for at least 15 days as it does a manual count of each vote given the close race which separates the top two candidates by only 3.250 votes when the counting stopped.

The truth is that there is no winner until the TSE makes it official and neither candidate or party or the press can make any claim to the contrary until the president of the TSE says it is so.

La Prensa in Panama yesterday had Arias as the winner and today it is carrying an AP (Associated Press) story which reports that ballots are now being counted.

Similar situations have been reported with other newspaper publications around the world.