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Pedro Castillo, 51, a socialist and former school teacher, declared victory after the 6 June election.
With 100 percent of the votes counted from the 6 June election, Castillo has a 44,000-vote lead.
But his contender, Keiko Fujimori, daughter of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori who is serving a 25-year sentence for ordering extrajudicial killings, is claiming fraud.
Despite the Organization of American States (OAS) saying they found no evidence of election fraud and the pollster Ipsos Peru stating it found no evidence of abnormal voting patterns in its statistical analysis of the ballots… a group of retired military officers announced in a letter that the military should refuse to acknowledge Castillo if he is officially declared the winner, Reuters reported.
The letter prompted Francisco Sagasti, the country’s interim president, to call the move “unacceptable.”
“They want to incite top commanders of the Army, Navy, and Air Force to break the rule of law,” he said.
Reports said Fujimori hopes to toss up to 200,000 votes and has been compared to former U.S. President Donald Trump for challenging the election. Al Jazeera reported that Fujimori also faces legal troubles. She is accused of laundering $17 million.
Fujimori’s detractors said the votes she wants to be tossed are largely from impoverished regions—mainly Indigenous voters—and her supporters have been accused of “hate speech and discrimination,” according to the United Nations high commissioner for human rights.
José Ragas, a Peruvian historian at the Catholic University of Chile, told the news outlet that her backers—known as Fujimoristas—“have created this idea of anti-communism as a façade to allow people to let their racism out.”
“Fujimori’s only solution is to die taking everyone with her,” he said.
He told The Guardian, “The Lima elite is not just trying to keep power – it’s not just that they don’t want to recognize the victory of Pedro Castillo – but they are trying to cancel the rural vote.”
The Guardian reported that some Fujimori supporters took to social media to call Andeans too ignorant to vote, and a private text chain between middle-class white men that surfaced online said these Andeans should “die of hunger” and called for Fujimori’s father’s alleged move to force sterilize the population.
Castillo has been criticized for his lack of experience and running a campaign that appeared chaotic to some. On Tuesday, he tweeted out, “No more poor in a rich country.”
TRENDPOST: As we have reported in previous issues of the Trends Journal, Peru has been suffering from an economic decline before the COVID-19 virus hit.
In November, the Trends Journal published an article, “IMPEACHMENT PROTESTS IN PERU TURN DEADLY,” that pointed to Manuel Merino’s elevation at the time to the country’s top office. Merino, a rice and bean farmer, was blamed by the public for assisting in Martin Vizarra’s impeachment. Vizarra was impeached on unproven allegations of taking bribes in 2011, when serving in another role in government. Merino himself eventually resigned.
TREND FORECAST: Prior to the start of the COVID War, protests and demonstrations were breaking out in Colombia, Bolivia, Chile and Peru.
In fact, in October 2019, riots in Peru broke out when its president, Martin Vizcarra, dissolved congress, which prompted opposition lawmakers to suspend him and appoint another leader.
Throughout South America, as economic conditions continue to rapidly deteriorate, civil unrest will escalate into civil wars. With corruption, crime, and violence rising, millions of citizens will risk their lives to migrate to safe-haven nations.