The Peruvian electoral court proclaims Pedro Castillo president and Keiko Fujimori admits the result

Leftist Pedro Castillo at a rally on June 8 in Lima.SEBASTIAN CASTANEDA / Reuters

The National Elections Jury (JNE) has proclaimed left-wing candidate Pedro Castillo as president of Peru on Monday, after reviewing the vote challenges and appeals submitted by Keiko Fujimori, the second contestant in the ballot held on June 6, for 43 days.

The updated scrutiny of 100% of the minutes of the electoral body (ONPE) gives the victory to Castillo with 50.12% of the votes compared to 49.87% of Fujimori, who announced that he will recognize the results "because it is what he orders the law and the Constitution ”.

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The daughter of the imprisoned former president Alberto Fujimori has denounced an alleged "fraud" in favor of Castillo, without providing evidence that the courts considered conclusive.

Observers for the OAS, the United States, and the European Union said the vote was clean.

The JNE said on Twitter that after declaring "unanimously the inadmissibility of the five [last] appeals presented by the [Fujimori] political party Fuerza Popular [...], the act of proclamation of general results will be drawn up." .

Castillo obtained 44,263 more votes than his opponent, according to the updated ONPE vote count, but the four-member JNE had the last word.

Fujimori, who now must go to trial for alleged money laundering, presented numerous challenges to votes and appeals to delay the proclamation of the winner, while his supporters demanded in the streets to annul the ballot and call new elections. Although on July 7 she had hinted that she would not do so, the right-wing candidate, who was competing for the third time in a ballot, announced this Monday that she recognizes the results of the JNE. “Today I announce that fulfilling my commitments, my commitment to all Peruvians, to [the Nobel Prize winner] Mario Vargas Llosa, to the international community, I am going to recognize the results because it is what the law and the constitution mandate that I have sworn to defend, ”he said at a press conference as soon as the JNE announced the imminence of the proclamation.

Fujimori admitted the result, but considered it "illegitimate", while calling on Peruvians "not to surrender and put into practice a democratic defense" in the face of the eventual "communist" government of Castillo, whom he accuses of wanting to convert Peru " in Cuba or Venezuela ”.

"Our defense of democracy does not end with the illegitimate proclamation of Pedro Castillo, this defense has just begun," Fujimori warned.

The new president must take office on July 28, the day on which the term of interim president Francisco Sagasti expires and on which Peru commemorates the bicentennial of its independence.

It is the first time in decades that the proclamation will take place within days of the change of command.

Usually the name of the new president was announced by the JNE about four weeks before.

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