Peruvians March In Capital, Demanding Electoral Transparency

LIMA (Peru), June 20 (Bernama-Anadolu) -- Peruvians marched alongside left-wing presidential candidate Roberto Sanchez in Lima on Friday, June 19, to demand transparency in the electoral process, Anadolu Ajansi (AA) reported.

Sanchez joined the demonstration to back claims of irregularities raised by his political movement regarding the handling of certain electoral records from the June 7 runoff.

The mobilisation comes as the official vote count nears completion; with 99.5 per cent of ballots processed, Sanchez trails conservative candidate Keiko Fujimori by approximately 40,000 votes.

Peru is still awaiting official results from its June 7 presidential runoff as legal challenges and disputes over overseas ballots cloud the narrow lead of candidate Keiko Fujimori with just 0.6 per cent of votes remaining to be tallied.

Fujimori, backed by the right-wing Popular Force party, has widened her lead against challenger Roberto Sanchez and his leftist Together for Peru party by roughly 39,000 votes, according to official figures.

As the final stretch of tallying continues, it has been complicated by a new challenge from Together for Peru, which filed an appeal to Peru’s Special Electoral Tribunal seeking to invalidate thousands of ballots across nearly 650 polling sites in the US.

The appeal alleges delays and irregularities in both the tallying process and the transfer of ballots back to Peru for counting during the second round presidential vote.

During a news conference Thursday, Sanchez decried what he called “excessive delays” in the transfer of overseas ballots, which have overwhelmingly favoured Fujimori.

-- BERNAMA-ANADOLU