Peruvian presidential candidate Roberto Sanchez said he would not recognise a government led by his rival Keiko Fujimori, deepening a political crisis as final votes are tallied after the country’s June 7 runoff.
“We believe there has been a serious disruption to the electoral process,” Sanchez told media outlets on Tuesday. “Under these violations of the rules, we will not recognise Ms. Fujimori’s government.”
With over 99 percent of votes tallied, Fujimori is leading by roughly 40,000 votes, according to the latest figures from Peru’s National Office of Electoral Processes.
Last week, legal representatives for Sanchez’s leftist Together for Peru party filed an appeal to Peru’s Special Electoral Tribunal, seeking to invalidate thousands of ballots across hundreds of polling sites in the US, alleging irregularities in the processing and shipment of ballots from consulate polling sites back to Peru for counting.
Sanchez called on the National Elections Board to take action, warning that if the body did not “resolve the matter based on electoral regulations, fraud will have been committed.” National electoral authorities and international observers have found no evidence of fraud during the second-round vote.
