Campaigns Close in Peru Amid Fraud Allegations

On the way to the second electoral round to elect a new president in Peru, the campaigns end gatherings and electoral propaganda amidst insinuations and discrediting messages against the public bodies in charge of the process.

The candidates to the Presidency had to reconfigure their plans to close the electoral campaigns given the prohibition, under a disposition of the municipality of Lima, to carry out any campaign closing in the San Martin square to avoid crowds and reduce the risks of contagion of Covid-19.

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The candidate of the Peru Libre party, Pedro Castillo, called his followers to meet him at Paseo Colon from 11:00 local time and then invited to follow a virtual meeting from 15:00 local time, with the former president of Uruguay, Pepe Mujica.

For her part, the candidate for the Popular Force party, Keiko Fujimori, rejected the declaration of the authorities and called it "anti-democratic" through her social networks, at the same time that she summoned her followers to meet with her in the Las Palomas Oval in the district of Villa El Salvador.

"Faced with the anti-democratic decision of the government not to allow us to hold our campaign closing in downtown Lima, we will go ahead," said the pro-Fujimori candidate.

The electoral campaign has been marked by endless smear messages and insinuations of fraud coming mainly from extremist groups.

These groups have implemented strategies via social networks and local media, distorting comparisons between Peruvian politics and other governments in the region and the world.

Such actions have been recently denounced by the Peru Libre party, who directly point to the media as participants in a possible coup against democracy in the country. 

Among the rumors of fraud, there were also denouncements in social networks indicating that deceased people are registered in the electoral roll. The same have been collected and taken care of by the electoral authorities.

Meanwhile, the National Jury of Elections (JNE) president, Jorge Luis Salas Arenas, offered statements to a local media where he confronted rumors of an alleged electoral fraud, which he considers a destructive action that seeks to sow doubts about the results.

"It is a serious fantasy to talk about fraud at this moment, and it is damaging to democracy; it is sowing doubts with the ulterior purpose of not recognizing the results," said Arenas.