A school teacher Pedro Castillo has been declared Peru’s president-elect, six weeks after elections result was delayed due to right-wing rival Keiko Fujimori’s claims of electoral fraud.
On Monday night, July 19, Jorge Luis Salas, the head of the JNE elections jury, announced his victory in a brief virtual ceremony.
Castillo, 51, is the leader of the Teachers’ Union. He is Peru’s first non-wealthy president.
His victory, however, means that rival Fujimori will face a corruption trial soon.
“On behalf of my family, I would like to salute the electoral authorities… as well as the political parties that have participated in this democratic celebration,” Castillo told supporters gathered at the Peru Libre (Free Peru) party headquarters in Lima.
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“Dear fellow citizens, I bring here an open heart for each and every one of you,” he declared from the balcony.
In a gesture to Fujimori, 46, the president-elect urged her to help “move the country forward” and stated that despite the numerous attacks he has faced in recent weeks, he holds “no resentment.”
The JNE upheld the ONPE elections body’s vote count, which had given Castillo 50.12 percent of the ballots cast, nearly 44,000 more than Fujimori, the majority of whose objections the jury dismissed.
Fujimori had previously claimed fraud, despite the fact that observers from the Organization of American States, the United States, and the European Union declared the vote free and fair, and her supporters had called for new elections.
The US embassy in Lima congratulated Peruvians on their election victories.
“We value our deep ties and hope to strengthen them with the president-elect Pedro Castillo after his inauguration,” it said on Twitter.
Castillo has set a goal of creating a million jobs in a year and has stated that Peru’s mining and hydrocarbon resources “must be nationalized.”
Among his more contentious campaign promises, Castillo has pledged to deport illegal foreigners who commit crimes in Peru, giving them “72 hours… to leave the country, a warning to the hundreds of thousands of undocumented Venezuelan migrants who have arrived since 2017.
School teacher Pedro Castillo…
