After 13 days of the presidential ballot in Peru - when rural teacher Pedro Castillo achieved an advantage of more than 44,000 votes over his adversary, the conservative Keiko Fujimori - tens of thousands of Peruvians have taken to the streets this Saturday to defend their vote. The appeal of appeals for the nullity of voting tables presented by the Fujimori party Fuerza Popular to the electoral tribunal has caused a delay in the proclamation of the winner. The largest demonstration was staged in Lima by the followers of the rural teacher Pedro Castillo for almost five hours. A few blocks away, the Fujimori and their allies placed a stage and also mobilized, by a different route. The defense of Castillo's vote has meant the trip to the capital of thousands of Peruvians from Andean and Amazonian regions, with their costumes, symbols,and spending of their own money, as they indicated to this newspaper.
"We are outraged, we will continue in Lima until Pedro Castillo is proclaimed. We have come with our own effort to defend our rural votes that we made with conviction, ”said Dionisio Soto, from the Santa Bárbara peasant community and a member of the Chopcca nation (ethnic group), one of the Quechua peoples that fought battles against the Shining Path terrorism in the Huancavelica region in the 1980s. Soto arrived in Lima with twenty other people of his ethnicity and they were stationed Saturday night in Plaza San Martín, 100 meters from the National Elections Jury, one of the points of daily concentration of the followers of Castillo, who ran for president for the left-wing Peru Libre party. "We no longer know what the National Elections Jury is waiting for:It is not fair that we continue in this uncertainty ”, commented the farmer Frank Padilla, 44, during the mobilization in Lima, questioning the appeals that Fujimorismo has made to their requests for the nullity of Castillo's votes declared inadmissible in the first instance of the electoral Tribunal. Padilla arrived a few days ago from the Amazon region of San Martín, and also organized with two dozen countrymen to travel to Lima to defend the ballots that Castillo scored.and it was also organized with two dozen countrymen to travel to Lima to defend the ballots that they scored for Castillo.and it was also organized with two dozen countrymen to travel to Lima to defend the ballots that they scored for Castillo.
"Because of the jury we are in the streets", "Jury: listen Pedro, he has already won," chanted the protesters who walked about three kilometers through the streets of Lima and exceeded the capacity of Plaza San Martín in downtown Lima.
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Thousands of Castillo's followers await the final decision in the streets of Lima: "When do you recognize the teacher?"
Pedro Castillo, the barefoot candidate
The march called 'for the defense of the vote and for democracy', had the participation of hundreds of civil society organizations, the National Confederation of Peasant, Native and Urban Rounds of Peru, representatives of teachers' unions, workers in the sector health, students, and bases of the Peru Libre party from districts of Lima and from most regions of the Andean country, among others. Saplings and similar marches were held in at least a dozen regions of the country. In the Lima mobilization, militants from the two left-wing parties allied to Peru Libre also participated in the second round: Frente Amplio and Nuevo Perú, the latter of the former presidential candidate Verónika Mendoza. ”All votes are worth exactly the same.Gone are the times of the Colony when it was believed that there were first and second category citizens. Now they say that in the mountainous region they have manipulated the vote, when in the mountainous region and throughout the country we have voted with memory, ”said Mendoza.
The seamstress María Rosario Silvestre, 49, marched with a sign that said "I'm here for my children," and expressed concern about the calls for a coup made by retired soldiers in recent days and calls to annul the elections .
"No more corruption, we want educational opportunities for our children, who are professionals, equal to those who have money," he explained.
Maruja Inquilla Sucasaca, leader of the Front for the Defense of Lake Titicaca and Tributaries, a polluted area on the border with Bolivia, held a banner with other citizens from Puno.
Inquilla trusts that Pedro Castillo will understand the needs of his threatened environment because he is a farmer.
The Fujimori claim
Simultaneously, some 200 meters from Grau Avenue, where the Castillo supporters' march was passing, a rally was taking place with the presence of the candidate accused of money laundering and criminal organization, Keiko Fujimori, and the lawyer Lourdes Flores, Former presidential candidate in 2006 who supported the Fujimori leader in the second round.
"We are here to say that we are not going to accept that our votes are stolen, to defend democracy," cried the eldest daughter of the autocrat Alberto Fujimori.
And when Flores, a former leader of the Popular Christian Party, took the microphone, she attacked Piero Corvetto, the head of the National Office of Electoral Processes, the entity that carries out the official scrutiny.
"Do not behave like a thief and hand over the register," said the lawyer, who has requested -on behalf of Fuerza Popular- personal data of the voting station members that Fujimori alleges -without evidence- that they forged their signatures on the 6th. June, during the second round.
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