Paraguayan Rubén Ramírez, head of the Organization of American States (OAS) Electoral Observation Mission in Peru, congratulated the country's electoral authorities for using "mechanisms that contribute to the transparency of electoral processes and provide certainty to citizens," EFE reported.
In a video message posted on OAS social media, Ramírez emphasized that last Sunday, Peruvians went to the polls "to express their will peacefully and democratically" and recognized the electoral authorities "for organizing a highly complex process, marked by the pandemic and political polarization."
After detailing that their mission was deployed in 18 regions of the country and five cities abroad, they emphasized that the data they collected "confirms the narrowness of the results presented by both the quick counts and the official data provided by the National Office of Electoral Processes."
In this regard, he maintained that "although citizens have already cast their votes, the electoral process is still ongoing," as votes remain to be processed at the national and international levels, as well as the observed votes to be resolved.
Ramírez also expressed his hope that the "democratic attitude will continue to prevail" in Peru and called on "citizens and political actors to await the official results with patience and serenity."
According to him, the mission was made up of 40 specialists from 16 nationalities, who during the voting only learned of "isolated incidents" during the process.
"The vote count was carried out in accordance with established procedures," he stated, before emphasizing that once the vote count began, "there were no interruptions in the flow of information, which was conducted publicly and transparently through the ONPE portal."
Ramírez added that they will continue their work in Peru until the final results are reported and in the next few days they will present a preliminary report on the elections.
The official data offered this Tuesday by the ONPE indicated that the leftist Pedro Castillo maintains an advantage of 75.477 votes over his rival Keiko Fujimori, when 97,4% of the minutes of the ballot held in Peru have already been scrutinized.
According to the latest official report, the candidate of the leftist Peru Libre party has received so far 50,22% of the valid votes (8.598.481) against 49,78% (8.523.004) of the candidate of the right-wing Fuerza Popular party. .
This information already contains 99,17% of the votes cast at the national level, while the vote count for Peruvians abroad currently reaches 54,50%.
The ONPE, for its part, issued an alert on its social media channels urging "beware of fake news about election records," after which it explained how and in what cases these reports are monitored.
