Voting in Peru: with 100% of the tables scrutinized, Pedro Castillo overtook Keiko Fujimori

Peru’s presidential election tally has reached its home stretch between court proceedings, scrutiny and street tensions, with Pedro Castillo as the most voted candidate and with Keiko Fujimori unwilling to assume, without a fight, his virtual defeat.

This Thursday, the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE) entered 100% of the voting records in its system and only 0.705% of the total remains to be counted.

With him 100% of the electoral files processed and 99.295% counted, Pedro Castillo is the candidate with the most votes and although there is still 0.705% of the votes to be counted, and this percentage is higher than that which separates Castillo from the candidate Keiko Fujimori ( 0.40 percentage point), it is unlikely that this result can be reversed.

So far, left-wing candidate Pedro Castillo holds 50.195% of the valid votes (8,803,629 votes) with a 68,473 vote advantage over right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori, who obtained 49.805% of the vote.

In the meantime, the electoral authorities have not reported any fraud but will analyze Keiko Fujimori’s complaints. During the counting of the presidential ballot in Peru, Keiko Fujimori denounced irregularities and accused his opponent’s party, Pedro Castillo, of “boycott the popular will “. Then, he announced that he would ask for the nullity of 802 the tables in all the countries. But neither the electoral authorities nor the external observation missions have records of a fraud.

“We have noticed that there has been a strategy on the part of Peru Libre to distort or delay the results of popular will, and I am referring to the process of contesting the records, where most of these challenges, above all, try to ‘prevent records that have a higher vote for Fuerza Popular, are not countedFujimori denounced at a press conference on June 7, the day after the election. Then he even mentioned “signs of fraud on the table. “Peru Libre is the party of Castillo and Fuerza Popular, that of Fujimori.

On the night of June 9, when the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE) had already processed 99.1% of the cases, Fujimori announced that it would request the cancellation of 802 tables Al National Electoral Jury (JNE). The two organizations told AFP that they would not comment on this request for the moment.

As of June 7, the JNE had registered 148 incidents during voting, What illegal propaganda, notes in favor of candidates inside the secret rooms and voters who refused to be members of the polling station, among others.

“There are incidents that are reported but that do not mean fraud at all», Declared on June 9 to the agency AFP a JNE communications officer, who added: “The incidents are not fraud. A fraud is when there are systematic and premeditated acts which have a direct impact on the vote, that does not exist ”.

Election fraud is not considered a crime in the Peruvian Penal Code, although several articles sanction procedures that compromise elections.

Reported cases

During the elections, several users turned to social media to denounce alleged irregularities, such as that of a representative of Peru Libre who had marked 87 identity cards in favor of Castillo.

The person involved was arrested by police at a polling station in the district of Carabayllo in Lima and the ONPE replaced the identity cards they found in their possession with reserve bulletins, ie new ones.

On June 7, the ONPE clarified that these votes were not entered in the Free Peru box. Later, the public prosecutor assured that the marked person “87 ballot papers with inscriptions other than symbols and photographs of candidates” and that it will be freely investigated.

Likewise, Peruvian media reported that Tumbes (in the north) a representative of Fuerza Popular had scored three laps in favor of Fujimori. As in the previous case, the ONPE assured that these identity cards were replaced by reserve bulletins, that the woman was detained and that her case would be investigated by the prosecution.

Also on social media, another case of identity cards marked in favor of Peru Libre was reported, this time in the city of Chiclayo. For this case, the same procedure was carried out.

Authorities and observers

Susana Vital, communications manager of the ONPE, confirmed to AFP that the cases reported in the press are in the hands of the Public Prosecutor’s Office: “The personeros who were detained for allegedly marking voting cards or having these documents in their possession were made available to the National Police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office.

With 99.9% of cases processed, the Special Electoral Juries (JEE) continued to examine this Thursday 684 minutes observed sent by the ONPE. These entities, about sixty in total, first decide on the validity of these minutes. To date, they had decided to cancel 134.

Regarding the request for invalidity of the 802 tables, made by Fujimori, each recording will be examined by a JEE. The last word is held by the JNE, which reviews the decisions of the JEE and proclaims the winner.

These elections were observed by teams from the Organization of American States (OEA), the Inter-American Union of Electoral Bodies (Uniore) and by the civil organization Transparency Peru. In their respective reports, neither of them mentions any evidence of fraud.

The OAS said it was aware of isolated incidents of marked votes, but highlighted the authorities’ actions in this regard. Uniore does suggestions on table member training and accessibility for people with disabilities. Transparency Peru, meanwhile, detailed that of a total of 175 events, 10 correspond to examples of identity cards marked in favor of a candidate; three cases of secret booths with favorable party ratings, among others.

On Thursday, the anti-corruption division of the Peruvian public prosecutor’s office asked preventive detention against Fujimori, in the context of a money laundering investigation linked to the Odebrecht affair. The Fuerza Popular candidate, who must stand trial in this case if she does not win the presidency, spent a total of 16 months in preventive detention, between October 2018 and May 2020.

With information from AFP

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