OPINION | Learn from the past or go back to the past: Peru must end with “act kills vote”

Editor’s note: Roberto Izurieta is director of Latin American Projects at George Washington University. He has worked in political campaigns in several Latin American countries and Spain, and was an advisor to Presidents Alejandro Toledo of Peru; Vicente Fox from Mexico, and Álvaro Colom from Guatemala. Izurieta has been a close friend of Keiko Fujimori since the 1990s. The author is also a contributor to CNN en Español. The opinions expressed here are solely his.

(CNN Spanish) – What are the lessons from Peru’s last election that we must all learn so that they do not happen again?

In the first place, change the rule “act kills vote”, that is to say that any vote not observed at the polling station is destroyed and this has always been an invitation to fraud at the polling station, since from then on there is no proof of a possible crime , nor how to rectify the damage. My impression is that this rule has been maintained for years because it has served some corrupt parties well to get the electoral majority at the table, especially when they had little to go to win.

Electronic voting would be a good mechanism to be able to review vote by vote what happened at each table. A simple electronic vote counting machine can sum up the votes that many times they do not want or cannot do at the table. The machines that count the votes leave the complete trace so that later the Electoral Boards (regional and national) can, with observers from the parties and international observers, combine and conclude with certainty the counting of those votes.

The National Elections Jury must clearly decide if there are three days or 27 hours to present objections. In Peru, the law says one thing and the regulation another. The three-day period is the minimum time for an affected party to find those electoral records that must be reviewed because there are doubts or indications, especially when the result is less than 0.5%. In Georgia, the new US electoral battle state (added to Florida), an automatic vote count of all votes is given when the difference is less than 0.5%. In Peru that is not possible because votes no longer exist. The votes should exist and if they do not exist, an electoral machine can keep the records of those votes and that summation.

The nullity actions of more than 800 tables requested by Keiko Fujimori raise many surprises (remember that there are no votes unless they have been observed at the table, so no votes can be presented, but only minutes). Finally, his accusation is that in many of those minutes the signatures did not coincide. Lourdes Flores, her previous opponent and now a lawyer in the electoral dispute, asked the electoral authority to follow the same signature review procedure that they follow to authorize political parties or electoral consultations. The electoral authority denied the request. The changes in the law should expressly allow the electoral authority to combine the signatures of the minutes, if necessary, just as it does with the registration process of a political party or electoral consultation.

It would be ideal for political parties to have table observers in each region to take care that these table frauds do not occur, but the parties will not be able to cover the logistical and economic cost with electoral laws so rigid in electoral spending. Furthermore, let us remember that tragically there is violence in certain areas and regions. An example of this is when they received stones at the supporters of Keiko Fujimori when they arrived at the debate in Arequipa, giving a sign of how anyone who dares to be a table observer for 10 hours without any protection would be received. The violent cannot be provoked. Electoral violence, unfortunately, has been a problem equal to or more serious than the daily violence that our countries experience. The only way is to continue guaranteeing security with the forces of order.

Electoral reform in our countries is more urgent than the classic fiscal reforms that every country faces at the request of creditors. The electoral reform does not arrive because, when it wants to arrive, it takes time and many of those involved prefer to be thinking about how to win using all the possible tricks and holes of the law.

When election spending is radically reduced to the point that a basic election campaign becomes impossible, almost everyone starts smoking underwater.

We need a realistic electoral reform that allows us to fulfill the purpose of a civilized electoral campaign: to communicate the messages of the candidates to their citizens. That costs time and money. That reality must be accepted and the problem solved. I do not see that serious and professional companies want to expose themselves to being the object of political persecution because they have made legal contributions to one or the other candidate. We do not have the institutional strength to protect them. Meanwhile, the “dark money” has no qualms about contributing and this is further polluting the electoral system.

Peru’s campaign is undermined on all sides and now the justice system has enough time to study the complaints transmitted by the electoral authority: sooner rather than later the truth will be known and, if it is how the candidate who was second in the count complains official, Pedro Castillo would assume the presidency with a glass floor. It is as if we are used to it: Peru has had four presidents in five years, now it will have another, and if any of these processes is confirmed, we could end the sixth year with a sixth president.

There are two well-known instruments in the American electoral political field: the lobby or lobbying and the PAC (Political Action Committee) or independent campaign committee. Lobbying is the possibility that companies have influence over public affairs and the Government, but it is extremely controversial. It is not something attractive but perhaps the least of the evils, because it is a fact that companies will lobby the Government; Thus, it is preferable that it be transparent, responsible, with spending limits and that they pay taxes for those expenses.

The PAC is promoting ideas. It is absolutely necessary. In the case of Peru, many companies would have wanted to invest in reporting the risk involved in designing and executing policies that lead the country to situations similar to those of Venezuela or Nicaragua. They are within their rights, it is the right of free expression and participation in public affairs. PACs spiraled out of control in the US when the Supreme Court allowed them to receive unlimited amounts of money – that ruined the process. Unlimited spending on politics destroys politics because it makes it more unequal. Like everything in life, in the lobby and the PACs, when talking about financing regulations, the solution is neither too much nor little, but what is necessary.