Expectation grows for the proclamation of the winner of the presidential elections in Peru

(CNN Spanish) – In Lima, in front of the National Jury of Elections (JNE), followers of the candidate for the presidency of Peru for Peru Libre, Pedro Castillo, remain this Monday in tents that they have installed in the street more than a month ago. Many are not from the capital.

“Fujimori never again,” shouts a group of them. Manuel Céspedes, a supporter of Castillo’s party, says “we are here so that the popular vote is respected.” Angélica Yaicalla, annoyed, tells us that “we want our teacher president, Pedro Castillo, to be proclaimed soon … we are in these tents sleeping like animals because of that Mrs. Keiko, and because of the JNE representative.”

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About a thousand meters, in front of the Palace of Justice, tents have also been installed, they are from the followers of the candidate Keiko Fujimori. Juan Carlos Palacio is one of them: “We are here a group of Peruvians who have come, even from the provinces, from different regions, to claim for the international audit that the candidate Fujimori has claimed from President Sagasti.”

“We don’t want communism, we want peace, democracy,” Aidé Vargas claims from the door of the tent where he sleeps with several blankets. It is cold in Lima and several showers have fallen intensely in recent nights.

More than a month has passed since the second round of the presidential elections took place in Peru, between Pedro Castillo and Keiko Fujimori. Peru still does not have a president and July 28 is approaching – the day the country’s independence is celebrated – and as is tradition, the first president, Francisco Sagasti, must hand over command to the winner. This will be known in the next few hours … or days, when the JNE announces it after having completed resolving the appeals to annul voting tables that were presented by Fujimori’s party, Fuerza Popular. Fujimori denounces fraud in the presidential elections by Pedro Castillo’s party.

On Sunday, July 11, Fujimori – during a rally with his followers – said: “They say that in a few hours or in a few days they will consummate the fraud at the table and we tell them that we are not going to accept it.”

In its social networks, the Ombudsman’s Office stated that it considers it necessary to reiterate to the Jury “its duty to expose the public with the maximum motivation in each of its decisions, this within the shortest possible time, taking into account the need to have authorities officially proclaimed ”. The Ombudsman’s Office added that “it would not be enough to point out that the claim of a political organization is inadmissible, just citing the article of the electoral regulations, without weighing the situation against the duty to protect the popular will expressed in the vote.

Since June 6, the date on which the ballot was carried out, the rallies and marches, both for Castillo and Fujimori’s parties, have not ceased. On Thursday, one of these marches led by supporters of Fuerza Popular tried to reach the Government Palace; while this was happening, the vehicle of the Minister of Health, Oscar Ugarte, was attacked, according to what he himself confirmed. The same happened with a journalist from the news channel, Canal N. The prosecution has opened an investigation against those responsible.

Keiko Fujimori in his networks said that “Popular Force rejects any act of violence that has been carried out today against members of the press, private property and the car of the Minister of Health.”

President Sagasti also declared: “What we do have to say is that we will not tolerate nor will we tolerate excesses or vandalism, far from it. It is one thing to be neutral, a government that respects human rights and the freedom to express itself and protest peacefully, but when the line of violence and vandalism is crossed, there we have to act firmly ”.

On Monday June 28, Fujimori arrived at the Government Palace to leave a letter to President Francisco Sagasti asking him to request an electoral audit from international organizations. Fujimori’s letter was answered by the Minister of Justice, Eduardo Vega, who stated that “by virtue of the principle of neutrality that every State institution must respect, and with the general election process underway, it is not legally possible to meet the request formulated ”.

For the same purpose, representatives of Fuerza Popular traveled to Washington to deliver a letter to the OAS. In a report dated June 11, the Organization’s Electoral Observation Mission said about the elections in Peru: “The mission has not detected serious irregularities.” From other fronts, such as the European Union, it has been said that the electoral process in the country has been “free and democratic.”

This Thursday, on Radio Santa Rosa, President Sagasti spoke about the allegations of fraud by Fuerza Popular: “Have the elections been fair for you? Yes. There is no fraud for you? A large-scale systematic fraud, no. What there are are the small material errors that exist in any electoral process. But do you believe that the winner proclaimed by the National Elections Jury is the winner of the election? Of course and you have to believe it too if you trust the National Elections Jury ”. Sagasti added: “There is a group of people who believe, have convinced themselves, talk among themselves, among all of them and have created a bubble for which there is nothing else that explains this result, which my candidate loses, he has to have fraud. Let’s be a little calmer, a little calmer, let’s try to see things not as we want them to be but as they are ”.

The truth is that the JNE, which has denied the possibility of fraud, has already finished solving the appeals that sought to annul polling stations and that were presented by Keiko Fujimori’s party, with it the proclamation of who occupies the presidency of the next 5 years will be known in hours or days. The question is whether this event will close a chapter or open a new one in the history of Peru, which this July 28 celebrates 200 years of its independence.