Peru: Pedro Castillo Wins Elections with 100% Counted

The National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE) declared the leftist representative Pedro Castillo from the Peru Libre (Free Peru) party as the winner of the June 6 presidential elections.

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Castillo secured 50.1 percent of votes over the conservative Popular Force (FP) candidate Keiko Fujimori who got 49.8 percent. The final result was announced after 100 percent of the ballots cast were tallied.

Throughout the week, Castillo and Fujimori's supporters took to the streets in Peru to demand an accurate vote-counting after unfounded allegations by the right-wing candidate of electoral fraud due to the tight vote between both candidates. 

Representatives from independent observation missions denied the occurrence of electoral fraud or lack of transparency, following statements by Fujimori, who claimed that electoral irregularities were favoring his opponent.

After obtaining over 2 million votes on April 11, the PL candidate entered into the election runoff race during the first election round in which he battled 17 candidates. He based his campaign on promising profound changes in the country's political and economic system through Constitutional reforms.

Despite being out of the political spotlight before the elections, Castillo gained national recognition by leading two union strikes in defense of the education sector. 

Over 17 million Peruvians participated in the 2021 elections, which took place amid popular discontent triggered by the government's mishandling of the pandemic, corruption scandals involving the political class, and growing social disparities.