La Nación / ANR and PLRA closed their electoral days and proceed to count the votes

The leftist presidential candidate Pedro Castillo, who leads the vote in Peru with 50.12%, said on Tuesday that he is still waiting for an official result and regretted that right-wing politicians who support candidate Keiko Fujimori are asking to annul the elections for alleged fraud.

Nine days after a close second round, the electoral body’s (ONPE) count reached 100% of counted tables, granting Castillo 8,835,579 votes (50.12%) over Fujimori’s 8,791,521 (49.87%). ).

Fujimori has denounced “fraud” in the June 6 elections and has asked the National Elections Jury (JNE) to annul the votes of 151 polling stations. Peru waits then, amid the uncertainty and some street mobilizations in favor of both candidates, the verdict of the JNE to know who will be its next president as of July 28.

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“I invoke the electoral authorities to, once and for all, stop lengthening and continue to have the Peruvian people in distress and respect the popular will of this country,” Castillo said before thousands of followers during a rally in Lima , in his first reaction after spreading the final count that favors him.

“Tonight should not only be of joy but of great responsibility, let us not get carried away by illusions or pretensions,” added the candidate. “Let’s not get confused. Today a result of the ONPE count has come out, but the most important thing is missing, which is the evaluation of the pending records that it has [que dirimir] the National Elections Jury (JNE), ”Fujimori said hours earlier, also before thousands of supporters gathered outside his party’s headquarters in Lima.

“We trust the electoral bodies and above all in the popular will and we know that when they analyze these irregularities, it is most likely that they will agree with us,” he said without giving signs of surrendering. The elections, which had 74.5% participation, were described as transparent by various observers, including the OAS, which said there were no “serious irregularities.” “An election continues to be called down,” Castillo told foreign press correspondents earlier at his party’s headquarters in Lima.

The rural professor added that they were “patients waiting for a result”, alluding to the work of the JNE, in an appearance where he did not accept questions from journalists. “I believe that we should not rush and even less use improper words such as fraud and wait for the results calmly,” said the interim centrist president, Francisco Sagasti, on Tuesday. “Democracy has rules and deadlines that we must all respect,” Cardinal Pedro Barreto declared in turn regarding the calls to annul the elections.

Fujimori also requested a “computer audit” from the ONPE, while the JNE reviews the challenges presented by each side, mainly by it. Both electoral bodies are under fire from the most radical sectors that support Fujimori, who fear that the review of the challenges by the JNE will not prevent Castillo from winning.

The ONPE organizes the elections and counts the votes, while the JNE resolves the challenges and proclaims the official winner. The retired admiral and elected parliamentarian Jorge Montoya called on Monday to annul the elections and call “new elections with international auditors,” by assuring on Twitter that the Peruvian electoral system “no longer provides confidence,” so the heads of the ONPE and the JNE.

Montoya is also one of the 64 retired generals and admirals who, in line with Fujimori, questioned the transparency of the elections on Monday, which led the Defense Ministry to express that this group of retired officers “does not represent the Forces Armed Forces. ”“ With the request for new elections, they are trying to generate violence, ”said Castillo’s vice-president candidate, Dina Boluarte, in a meeting with the foreign press.

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On the street, dozens of Fujimoristas hold daily demonstrations in front of the houses of the heads of the ONPE, Piero Corvetto, and the JNE, Jorge Luis Salas. This attitude has been denounced by the UN Human Rights Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet. Peru has been mired in political convulsions for five years that led it to have three presidents in five days in November 2020, and it has also been badly hit by the pandemic and the economic crisis.

“The position that a group on the right is taking is seditious, but the country is calm. They are political groups of the old right of the Pinochet style that believe that Keiko is not going to be president and want to replace Admiral Montoya as transitional president, “analyst Hugo Otero, former adviser to former president Alan García, told AFP on Tuesday. .

“I do not know if it is legally possible to annul the elections, but every day there is evidence of manipulation of electoral records and a series of irregularities,” Fernando Rospigliosi, an advisor to Keiko Fujimori, told AFP.

Source: AFP.

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