The Together for Peru far-left coalition on Thursday filed a request to have nearly 90 percent of all the foreign votes cast by Peruvians in the United States in the June 7 presidential runoff nullified — alleging a purported “irregular intervention” by the Peruvian Foreign Ministry in favor of conservative candidate Keiko Fujimori.
The request would eliminate a sizable amount of the total foreign votes cast by Peruvians around the world — highly favorable for Fujimori and crucial for the conservative candidate in the yet-to-be defined razor-thin vote count.
As of Friday, Peruvian electoral authorities are still counting the votes of the extremely narrow June 7 presidential runoff election between Fujimori and Roberto Sánchez, with no official, definitive results that can determine who will be the next president of the South American nation five days after the election.
According to Peru’s National Electoral Processes Office (ONPE), and with 98.258 percent of the votes, Fujimori holds a 1,303-vote lead against Sánchez. The conservative candidate and former First Lady of Peru regained the race’s lead throughout the early morning hours of Thursday following the arrival of the last shipments foreign vote minutes from abroad. The June 7 runoff saw over 2,500 foreign voting stations for Peruvians across some 70 countries in all five continents in the world.
Together for Peru, the far-left coalition represented by Sánchez in the runoff, lodged a complaint before a special Lima court on Thursday seeking to have the entirety of the votes cast in 647 voting tables setup for the election at the United States nullified and their votes removed from the final count. The Argentine outlet Infobae, upon reviewing a copy of the complaint, reported that the far-left coalition is accusing the Peruvian Foreign Ministry of having allegedly instructed polling station officials to “urge voters” to vote for Fujimori.
Additionally, the complaint reportedly lists a series of operational “irregularities” allegedly committed at voting stations in New York, North Carolina, and Salt Lake City, among others.
According to ONPE’s official preliminary vote count, Fujimori obtained an overwhelming 76.55 percent majority of the votes cast by Peruvians in the United States against Sánchez’s 23.4 percent. With 95.8 percent of all votes cast by Peruvians in the U.S. counted as of Friday morning, Fujimori received 44,440 votes in the U.S. while Sánchez received 13,607. Per ONPE’s official listing, voting stations were setup in 22 different U.S. cities for Sunday’s runoff. Fujimori obtained overwhelming victories in all 22 U.S. cities.
On Thursday, the conservative candidate’s Popular Force party further denounced that the far-left Together for Peru coalition is also seeking to have some 1,700 domestic voting tables nullified in addition to the over 600 foreign ones, citing alleged “irregularities.” Luis Dyer, Popular Force’s official representative at the runoff election, told reporters on Thursday that the party is “calm” and assured that Popular Force’s legal team is analyzing the situation. According to Dyer, he estimates that Peru will know who was the winner of the election at some point between the end of June and the first week of July.
Dyer reportedly downplayed the leftist coalition’s request and argued that it has “no legal basis,” noting that it is “their right” to challenge it and that they must pay a local sum to have it processed, which he estimated at nearly 3 million Peruvian soles (roughly $882,500). The representative also pointed out that Together for Peru is allegedly seeking to invalidate election minutes already signed by the coalition’s representatives and further claimed that the leftists intend to invalidate minutes in which “they win.”
“However, I want to reassure the public, we see that the entire process has been fair, and we are fully prepared to address such challenges,” Dyer reportedly said.
Fujimori addressed the situation on Thursday in remarks to the press and said that she sees “no grounds for annulment” but, much like Dyer, noted that the leftist coalition are “fully within their rights” to challenge the results before the nation’s authorities. The conservative candidate said that, regardless of the final outcome, she remains willing to talk with Sánchez’s party, but that she will wait for the results first.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.