Peru Extends Voting After Election Failures

Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio reports on Peru's extended election, after polling day chaos in the capital Lima. 

Transcript

Hi everyone, so, back to Peru, with voting extended into Monday after reported delivery failures prevented the installation of 211 polling tables at 15 locations in Lima, affecting about 63,300 voters. So the vote continues into today in the capital. And the failures were not without consequences, as police raided the headquarters of the National Office of Electoral Processes in an attempt to establish what had happened, and who was to blame. Jose Samame, its managing director, accepted responsibility, handed in his resignation and was then later arrested by police.

From what we know so far, right-wing veteran candidate Keiko Fujimori is in the lead and looks set to make the second round, currently polling at around 17% of cast votes, whilst Trump-styled candidate and ex-Lima Mayor Rafael ​Lopez Aliaga on roughly 15% appeared to be in second place, but there’s still a way to go. 

The queues at many polling stations were genuinely staggering yesterday, and did little to alleviate the sense that Peru is a country trapped in the center of an ongoing democratic crisis. 

We’ve already seen claims of electoral fraud from candidates, and with such a cluttered field, it’s highly likely that anyone who doesn’t make second place - and therefore the second-round run-off - by a thin margin, will refuse to accept the result and issue challenges. 

So this has a way to run yet, and no analysis on the results for the moment, because we don’t have them yet. What does seem almost certain is that two right wingers will contest the run-off, giving Fujimori a strong chance of achieving the presidency, at her 4th attempt, especially if her opponent is Rafael ​Lopez Aliaga, who is to the right of her. Should she win the run-off, it would likely plunge Peru into new difficulty given that Fujimori is arguably the most polarising candidate in the field, in part because of the politics of her father, formerly dictator of Peru, but also because of how many times she has called into question the validity of Peru’s electoral processes in the past, for personal gain.

It’s all very muddy, and uncertain.