Keiko Fujimori Secures Unassailable Lead in Peru Runoff, Officials Delay Winner Until Mid-July

Peru’s right-wing presidential hopeful Keiko Fujimori built what official figures showed as an unassailable lead in the runoff election as vote counting entered its final stages, with 99.86 percent of ballots tallied and Fujimori holding 50.12 percent of the vote.

CBS News said the margin was just over 43,000 over leftist rival Roberto Sanchez, and that election officials still needed to process 131 tally sheets representing around 39,000 votes before declaring a winner.

Al Jazeera

The electoral authority did not plan to declare a winner until mid-July, and the winner would take office July 28 for a five-year term, according to CBS News.

In a separate account, Folha de S.Paulo said Fujimori had 50.11% of the votes and was ahead of Roberto Sánchez by 43,386 votes, with only 40,213 potential votes remaining to be counted.

Folha de S.Paulo added that the electoral authority had not officially declared a winner yet and planned to do so in mid-July, as the runoff results were delayed by a review of contested ballots and the late arrival of overseas votes.

Roberto Sanchez denounced the runoff as “fraudulent” and said he would not recognize a Fujimori presidency, accusing authorities of manipulating votes cast abroad to favor a right-wing government.

Al Jazeera quoted Sanchez writing, “We will not recognise that government and will declare a state of political and social struggle — a movement of popular and patriotic resistance,” after a news conference calling for protests over the weekend.

Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera said Fujimori was in the lead with 50.11 percent support as of Tuesday with more than 99.7 percent of votes counted, while Sanchez won 49.89 percent and roughly 40,687 ballots separated the two candidates.

In a separate report, Devdiscourse said Sanchez alleged that “fraud was underway”, without providing evidence, and that he would refuse to recognize the results of the election.

Devdiscourse also said Sanchez had requested the annulment of thousands of votes cast abroad that mostly favored Fujimori, but Peru’s national electoral jury rejected the request on Tuesday night.

Al Jazeera said Peru set up roughly 2,506 polling tables on foreign soil and that the government estimated overseas voters accounted for more than 1.2 million people, or roughly 4.4 percent of the country’s total voter roll.

Sanchez argued that a change in procedure made the voting process vulnerable to interference, and Al Jazeera quoted him saying, “This unlawful action renders the run-off elections held at consular offices null and void, as it has compromised the legal certainty of the votes cast by Peruvians abroad”.

Al Jazeera reported that Sanchez called on the National Jury of Elections (JNE) to “declare as null the June 7 elections held at consular offices for Peruvians abroad,” focusing on election results from 119 Peruvian consular offices where voting was held.

CBS News said many voters had hoped the election would draw a line under years of political chaos marked by presidents jailed, deposed and impeached, and it noted that the tight result showed Peru remained divided between the populous coast and the more rural, Indigenous south.

Folha de S.Paulo said Fujimori’s probable victory would deepen the rightward swing of Latin America after the election of outsider Abelardo de la Espriella in Colombia on Sunday, while Peru faced deep economic inequalities between the capital and rural regions and disillusionment with politicians.