Peru Resumes Review of Vote Annulment Requests

Peru's Jurado Nacional Electoral (JNE) on Monday will continue with the review of ten appeals whereby the far-right Popular Force candidate Keiko Fujimori is trying to prevent Free Peru candidate Pedro Castillo from being declared the winner of the presidential elections held on June 6.

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The JNE plenary session, which was expected to begin at 09H30 local time and be broadcast on TV channels and social networks, would resume the review of the appeals that was interrupted because of the resignation of Judge Luis Arce on Friday.

Previously, however, most of the JNE judges had declared that the appeals were unfounded. If this is confirmed again, Fujimori would definitely lose the elections.

As part of her political strategy to prevent Castillo's rise to power, however, the daughter of former dictator Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) hired the most expensive law firms in Lima to get the annulment of some 200,000 votes cast in the areas where the leftist teacher won overwhelmingly.

Although Popular Force's legal team has not presented evidence of the alleged fraud, she claims that the signatures of the polling station authorities were "substituted". Contrary to these claims, at least 36 local authorities declared under oath that their signatures were not forged.

On June 23, the JNE began the review, deliberation, and vote on the nullity petitions that the Peruvian right wing filed before the Special Electoral Juries (JEE).

During the last week, the political character of the vote annulment request became much more clear. On Thursday, through audios and videos posted on social networks, Peruvians realized that Vladimiro Montesinos, the former head of intelligence during the Fujimori dictatorship, tried to bribe three judges to prejudice the Free Peru candidate.