Peruvian prosecutors raid election records warehouse

LIMA – Prosecutors on April 17 raided a warehouse that houses the ballots cast in Peru’s presidential election – a vote that ended in chaos, with complaints against officials and allegations of missing voter materials.

The raid was conducted at the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE), which organises the vote, “in order to determine whether it has fulfilled its duties regarding the election materials used”, officials said on social media.

The April 12 and 13 votes are still being tallied, with partial vote counts progressing very slowly because almost all the remaining tally sheets have been challenged and must undergo review from electoral courts.

About one million votes hang in the balance.

With 93.3 per cent of ballots processed, right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori leads with 17 per cent.

The top two candidates go to a run-off election, and a close race has emerged between leftist candidate Roberto Sanchez, who pulled 12 per cent of the vote, and ultra-conservative Rafael Lopez Aliaga, with 11.9 per cent.

The gap between them is around 13,000 votes.

On April 16, four boxes containing 1,200 ballots were discovered in a Lima trash bin, deepening doubts about the election, which was also marked by delays in the delivery of election materials that forced authorities to extend voting.

Mr Roberto Burneo, president of the National Jury of Elections (JNE), Peru’s highest electoral justice authority, told a congressional committee that “there are serious irregularities in the management and performance” of ONPE in the election.

ONPE chief Piero Corveto and three other officials have been reported to JNE for alleged crimes against the right to vote.

A record 35 candidates ran for president of the chronically unstable Andean nation, where four of the last eight presidents were impeached by Congress.

The campaign was dominated by a flurry of hardline proposals from the right on how to combat a surge in extortion and contract killings. AFP