Pedro Castillo makes plans and president gestures as Peru awaits long announcement of poll winner

The socialist Pedro Castillo, who led the vote count for the Peruvian presidential election, called for unity on Friday and even presented some plans for a possible government. pending the official announcement of the winner of the elections.

The proclamation of the next president was delayed by the suspension of one of the four members of the electoral jury, who does not manage to finish resolving the requests for invalidity of the vote of the right Keiko Fujimori, who reported fraud without further evidence.

Castillo, a 51-year-old schoolteacher and son of peasants, began to act as if he were already president, meeting with various leaders of other political parties during the week.

Thursday he went to wake of a 6-year-old boy, the only dead man who had the magnitude 6 earthquake on the Richter scale that happened the night before, and this Friday he traveled to the southern town of Cusco to attend a meeting of regional governors, located in southeastern Peru and where he criticized the government’s historic centralism towards the capital Lima.

“In its interior, Peru has other types of nations, it is diverse, it is multiple, it is multiethnic and that is why we are here”, Castillo said during the event to which he was invited by the union of regional authorities.

“In this walk There are no more losers or winners, today we are one family, today it is the Peruvian people who must order us to start with this feat of development“he claimed.

The left candidate was first in the June 6 elections with only 40,058 votes ahead of Fujimori, who presented legal remedies to overturn 200,000 votes alleging forged signatures at polling tables, mostly in rural and poor areas, where the daughter of jailed former president Alberto Fujimori did not gain more support.

The polarized election deeply divided Peruvians and on Thursday dozens of supporters of the two candidates clashed with flags and banners which they wore in front of the seat of the electoral jury in Lima. Further marches on both sides are planned for Saturday.

“I can’t go any further because even being an elected government, we are waiting for the jury to say the last word and what I have to say I will say when I have this official document, because there is a lot to do “Castillo said during his speech broadcast live on local television.

The interim president was at the same meeting of governors in Cusco on Thursday Francisco Sagasti, who hopes to hand over the post to his successor on July 28 for a five-year term.

Castillo said that He will not give up his plan to rewrite the Constitution, an electoral campaign offer to strengthen the role of the state and keep a larger share of the profits of mining companies, which made investors nervous and rocked the markets.

“We are not going to change the language, we are not going to change the message, but rather I ask you, as regional governors, to be the first to be summoned to participate in the next National Constituent Assembly “Castillo said.

International observers in Lima, including the Organization of American States (OAS) mission, said the elections in Peru were transparent. The same was also said by the office of the European Union, while the US State Department declared that they were a “model of democracy”.

Meanwhile, from the Fujimori Party, the country’s political, economic and business elite that backs the conservative candidate has asked the Government to ask the OAS to carry out an audit of the electoral process like the Bolivian elections of 2019.

With information from Reuters and EFE

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