Politics

Castillo calls for calm, Fujimori claims electoral fraud in Peru polls

(Update 1: Adds Castillo quotes, updates headline, rewrites and minor edits throughout)

Lima, Jun 7 (EFE).- Peruvian presidential candidate Pedro Castillo affirmed Monday that he will be “the first to enforce the will of the Peruvian people” and called for calm after his rival Keiko Fujimori made claims of electoral fraud in weekend’s runoff.

From the balcony of his party headquarters in Lima, Castillo addressed his supporters gathered outside the premises awaiting the final election tally, and called for calm.

With 94.86 percent of the votes counted, Castillo has 50.28 percent and Fujimori 49.72 percent, according to the Office National Electoral Processes (ONPE).

“We will not tire of saying the usual – that only the people will save the people,” Castillo said amid cheers, chants and fireworks.

The professor and former union leader recognized the “courage” of his representatives at the voting stations and welcomed the “citizen vigil for democracy” that his followers are carrying out outside the ONPE in Lima.

“The homeland, Peru needs its children… we have to be respectful of the popular will,” said the Free Peru candidate.

Earlier at a press conference, Fujimori claimed electoral fraud that she attributed to Castillo’s party.

“There is a clear intention to boycott the popular will,” said Fujimori and asked that complaints of other similar cases be shared on the networks under the slogan #FraudeEnMesa.

Among the irregularities that the Popular Force candidate claims are the challenges to the records in which she says she had a higher number of votes than her rival, training talks by Free Peru urging staff to report earlier in order to ensure votes, and a complaint against an employee of the party who fraudulently marked 87 cards.

Likewise, the existence of more than 1,200 contested minutes, in which Fujimori supposedly takes the lead in the vote.

That data, as EFE was able to verify on the official website of the ONPE, is false, as so far there are only 461 contested records.

The National Elections Jury shared on Twitter a document from the Mission of Observers of the Inter-American Union of Electoral Organizations (UNIORE) where it recognized that “the electoral process carried out on June 6 was organized correctly and successfully in accordance with national and international standards.” EFE

mmr/tw

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