For weeks, Ecuador’s right-wing opposition has accused the government of foul play ahead of Sunday’s presidential election. Today, they were caught red-handed committing the same crimes they accuse the leftist government of doing.

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Ecuadorean activist Ebi Camacho released a video Thursday showing presidential candidate Guillermo Lasso’s campaign workers offering “jobs” to Quito residents in exchange for vote pledges, which violates the country’s laws.

According to Article 204 of Ecuador’s Code of Democracy, “candidates and political organizations can not give donations or gifts to citizens.”

But it gets even worse. The so-called “jobs” that Lasso’s campaign was offering to Quito residents were a total lie. Camacho found thousands of completed “job” applications in trash cans near Lasso’s campaign headquarters.

“My fellow Ecuadoreans, why are we letting a banker humiliate us like this?” Camacho asked in the video.

“We (our government) have many tasks to complete, but it’s not worth seeing our dreams and hopes, in the form of thousands of names, in the garbage.”

This isn’t the first time Lasso’s campaign has come under fire for questionable, and possibly criminal, campaign tactics.

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On Monday, his campaign was caught giving out free Lasso-branded basic food products to voters in a move that many have likened to vote-buying. If investigated, he can be charged with violating Article 204 as well.

Lasso campaigners gave the branded bread and milk to citizens in northern Quito, one of the city’s poorest areas. According to witnesses, people were told by supporters of Lasso’s CREO party to vote for the banker-turned-politician, while claiming that there will be fraud in the April 2 vote.

“We reject such practices. They undermine the values of democracy, participation and respect for people,” rival Alianza Pais presidential candidate Lenin Moreno said in a statement.

“We demand the CNE prohibit this type of practice and activate the respective control mechanisms, as mandated by the Code of Democracy.”

The banker has also been accused of helping to create Ecuador’s 1999 banking crisis, which left millions impoverished, forced millions to leave the country, while a few wealthy elite, including Lasso, got up to 30 times wealthier.

Just few hours into the tight first round of Ecuador’s presidential race between left-wing candidate Lenin Moreno and his right-wing opponent Guillermo Lasso, the conservative opposition began to promote the unsubstantiated claim that the elections authorities in the country were committing fraud in favor of the ruling party PAIS Alliance and its wheelchair-bound candidate.

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The fantastic assertion came despite the fact that 200 election observers were present at polling stations around Ecuador. Lasso and his running mate Andres Paez personally accused Juan Pablo Pozo, the head of the National Electoral Council, of personally overseeing the alleged fraud, predicated on the election officials refusal to declare whether candidates would head to a second round.

“Mr. Pozo is a well-educated and polite gentleman, but he only responds to the interests of his boss,” Lasso said referring to outgoing President Rafael Correa.

In various press conferences, Pozo had said that due to the fact that the race was tight, his council would take its time counting votes and resolving “irregularities” before announcing the final official results, a process that could take up to three days after the vote.

But for the banker and former finance minister, those three days were tantamount to a “shameless” attempt by the government and the council to “get their hands” in the election results.

Moreno finished the first round with 39.2 percent of all votes, just short of the required 40 percent and 10-point difference to avoid a runoff, as Lasso fell behind in second place with almost 28.3 percent of the votes.

As soon as the results were released showing that Moreno had won the round but would face a second round contest against Lasso, observer missions began releasing information about the voting, flatly dismissing any suggestion of fraud and hailing the transparency of the process.

“The Mission has not observed evidence of fraud,” Gerardo de Icaza, director for the Department for Electoral Cooperation and Observation at the Organization of American States, told teleSUR Wednesday from Washington D.C., adding that “any allegation of fraud should be supported by evidence,” which Lasso’s campaign has failed to do.

De Icaza further noted that the National Electoral Council (CNE) “has taken measures, some of them recommended by the OAS, to improve the process and make it more reliable and transparent.”

Also following the first round’s results, the electoral mission of the Union of South American Nations, Unasur, rejected the fraud claims with the head of the mission, Alexander Vega, arguing that delay in the release of final results is a normal vote-counting procedure and called for people to be calm and wait for the final results.

Vega also clarified that despite his claims to supporters and media, Lasso did not actually file a protest to electoral authorities.

“No one has claimed fraud,” Vega said on Feb. 21 just two days after elections day, adding that it is difficult to believe “that the National Electoral Council would have invited more than 200 observers for a fraud.”

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He added that the Ecuadorean system is “so transparent that whoever wins can download the transcripts, add the votes and will get the same result.”

The election mission of the OAS had also issued a report praising the government and the election authority for the transparency of the process and the steps taken to improve voting.

Leonel Fernandez, the head of 66 election observers from the OAS held a press conference in the capital Quito on Feb. 23 sharing with reporters his mission’s findings. “On election day, OAS observers visited 375 polling stations in 17 provinces of the country,” Fernandez told reporters reading from the report. “Despite some inconveniences during the elections, the mission observed progress in the organization and administration of elections and recognizes the efforts made by officials at the National Electoral Council (CNE) led by its president Juan Pablo Pozo.”

He further hailed the measures adopted to expand the exercise of political rights for all Ecuadoreans “through mechanisms like voting from home and voting in prisons” and “the special assistance for people with disabilities, the elderly, and pregnant.”

The OAS report also shut down any claims of fraud stressing that allegations of already marked ballots were highly isolated incidents and that only three people have come forward regarding such cases.

“Despite social networks echoing this situation, the truth is these were isolated cases and these votes were not counted,” said the former president of the Dominican Republic.

While mounting evidence in fact confirms that the first round of the presidential elections was fraud-free, Lasso and Paez have continued to reiterate their allegations, and have even threatened to overturn the election of PAIS Alliance legislators once in office.

These persistent actions from opposition politicians have raised concerns that they will once again claim fraud in the second round – in spite of lacking evidence – in an effort to rally their supporters

Speaking during a CNE workshop held with representatives from the electoral missions in Quito on March 20, Vega said it was “impossible” to have fraud in the next round of the vote on April 2, calling the opposition’s warnings about a possible fraud in the next round “reckless” and urging all political actors to be calm and responsible.

While fraud is out of the question in the upcoming vote, observers say that as in the first round irregularities are expected to occur.

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In the first round the ruling party PAIS Alliance had submitted complaints to the election authorities regarding such incidents, which observers say are common part of any election and fundamentally different than fraud.

De Icaza defined irregularities as “mistakes” or “Isolated electoral offences, such as vote buying” adding that such incidents occur in every electoral process. “These are normally isolated and do not have the scope and width to alter the results of an election.”

When such incidents take place and are detected by observers at poll stations “we report any irregularities we observe and we hand any complaints we receive to the competent electoral authorities.”

While irregularities are isolated events, fraud is “the systematic intention to alter results and the will of the people,” the OAS election expert argued.

When asked about when electoral missions begin to worry about irregularities he said when they “become generalized and there is a clear and systematic intention to alter the results of the election we can talk of fraud.”

Such a situation could easily be discovered in the Ecuadorian elections because it “is being very closely observed by political parties, the media, civil society organizations and national and international observers,” he concluded.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro addressed the impasse between the country’s major institutions, calling a meeting this evening to resolve the differences between the Supreme Court and the attorney general.

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“I am activating Article 323 of the constitution, and have already summoned the Security Council to process and resolve any differences that may exist between constituted powers,” Maduro said Friday. “There is a controversy and it must be resolved through dialogue, not with extreme positions or by giving arguments to those who want to intervene Venezuela.”

The Venezuelan president referred to statements earlier Friday by Venezuela’s Attorney General Luisa Ortega criticizing a decision by the top court, calling it “a rupture in the constitutional order.”

In a Wednesday ruling on an appeal filed by the Venezuelan Corporation of Petroleum to Article 33 of the Organic Law of Hydrocarbons, the court stated that the National Assembly had authority to approve such ventures. The court ruled that since the National Assembly continues to be in contempt of the constitution, the top court will “ensure the rule of law” and will exercise parliamentary powers where necessary in the ruling issued today on the joint venture.

“As long as the disrespect and invalidity of the proceedings of the National Assembly persists, this Constitutional Chamber will ensure that the parliamentary powers are exercised directly by this Chamber or by the body it has in place to ensure the rule of law,” said the ruling.

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The U.S. State Department responding by calling the verdict an attempt to “usurp” the power of the National Assembly, while OAS General Secretary and opposition ally Luis Almagro said Venezuela was undergoing a “self-coup.” Regional leaders including Juan Manuel Santos and Michelle Bachelet expressed concerns, while Bolivia and Ecuador called for Unasur-mediated negotiations to advance.

While opponents of the Bolivarian government have often trumpeted claims of lack of separation of powers in the South American nation, the Venezuelan leader responded that he knew nothing of either the statement by Ortega, nor the court decision Wednesday.

“But since I apparently control everything, I suppose I wrote both the attorney general’s statement and the court’s statement,” Maduro said sarcastically.

Since January 2016, the Supreme Court ruled that the National Assembly was in contempt of the constitution over fraud charges involving opposition deputies from the state of Amazonas. The officials were caught in a recording illegally offering sums of taxpayer money to citizens, encouraging them to vote for opposition candidates. When the Supreme Court ordered the National Assembly to hold elections to replace the corrupt leaders, the legislative body refused to follow the appropriate process to do so.