Presidential candidate rejects results linked to overseas votes

LIMA (AP):

Presidential candidate Roberto Sánchez says he will refuse to recognise the results of Peru’s June 7 presidential run-off if officials count ballots cast by Peruvians overseas that he alleges were processed improperly.

With 99.72 per cent of votes counted, Sánchez trails conservative candidate Keiko Fujimori by just 40,000 votes and is expected to lose the election once authorities finish processing tally sheets. More than 18 million Peruvians participated in the run-off.

Sánchez, a former commerce minister popular in rural areas and among Peru’s Indigenous population, would win the election if votes cast by Peruvians living abroad are discarded, according to data published by election authorities.

Sánchez’s campaign has filed a petition to reject overseas ballots, arguing that Peruvian consulates abroad did not use a government-provided app to scan tally sheets, as required by law.

Peru’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement that, in late May, it had obtained authorisation from electoral officials to conduct voting at consulates without scanning tally sheets, instead sending them directly to the capital, Lima, to be processed after voting ended.

The ministry said the change was made because of problems with the scanning app during the first round. Sánchez’s campaign argues that the procedural change created opportunities for fraud, an allegation denied by both Peru’s national elections agency, ONPE, and the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

“Under these conditions of transgression of the rules, we will not recognize the government of Miss (Keiko) Fujimori”, Sánchez said yesterday.

More than 307,000 Peruvians living abroad voted in the June 7 run-off between Sánchez and Fujimori, with 65 per cent supporting Fujimori, according to ONPE.

Fujimori has not commented on Sánchez’s request to annul the overseas votes.

The conservative candidate, who campaigned on a tough-on-crime platform, won an overwhelming majority of votes cast by Peruvians living in the United States, Argentina and Japan, where her paternal grandparents were born.

Sánchez, an ally of imprisoned former President Pedro Castillo, has promised to reform the nation’s mining sector to give community groups a stake in copper and gold mines. His campaign performed strongly in mountainous areas of southern Peru that have long suffered from economic exclusion, but lagged behind Fujimori in Lima, where about a third of Peru’s voters are based.

Peru has had eight presidents in the past decade, only two of whom were elected by popular vote. The others replaced presidents who resigned or were removed by Peru’s Congress amid corruption allegations.

Despite the political instability, Peru has maintained stable economic policies that have enabled it to become one of the fastest-growing economies in South America.