CNN - Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And for the scandal-ridden Miss Universe pageant, this is proving a big part of the problem.
Opaque and subjective voting criteria have made it difficult to untangle the web of allegations surrounding this year’s finale. The question of whether Miss Mexico, Fátima Bosch, should have won is no longer about how she performed on stage — it’s about allegations of vote-rigging, secrecy and favoritism.
One of the contest judges, Omar Harfouch, has made a plethora of damaging claims on social media since resigning from his post days before last Friday’s finale.
Among them, the Lebanese-French composer claimed 30 finalists were preselected in a “secret vote” by an “impromptu jury” comprising of individuals not on the official judging panel (an allegation the Miss Universe Organization denied). Perhaps more controversially, he said that Bosch’s victory was also pre-scripted, influenced by business ties between the pageant’s co-owner and president of the Miss Universe Organization, Raúl Rocha Cantú, and the Mexican beauty queen’s father.
Neither the Miss Universe Organization nor Rocha Cantú’s lawyer responded to CNN’s requests for comment. On the latter claim, Rocha Cantú toldMexican journalist Adela Micha that a contract his company held with Mexico’s state-owned oil company Pemex, to whom Bosch’s father is an advisor, was awarded via a fair public bidding process that predates his co-ownership of the Miss Universe pageant. Pemex said in a statement on X that it had a temporary contract with companies linked to Rocha Cantú in 2023, although it emphasized that the relationship no longer exists.
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