Head of OAS Mission Congratulates Perú for Transparent Elections

Paraguayan Rubén Ramírez, head of the Electoral Observation Mission of the embattled Organization of American States (OAS) to Perú, congratulated the country’s electoral authorities for the use of “mechanisms that contribute to the transparency of the electoral processes and provide certainty to the citizens,” reported the news agency EFE.

In a video message broadcast on OAS social media networks, Ramírez stressed that last Sunday Peruvians went to the polls “to express their will in a peaceful and democratic manner” and recognized the electoral authorities “for the organization of a highly complex process, marked by the pandemic and political polarization.”

After detailing that his mission was deployed in 18 regions of the country and five cities abroad, Ramírez remarked that the data they gathered “confirmed the narrow margin of the results that was presented both by the quick counts and by the official data reported by the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE).”

In this regard, he said that “although the citizens have already cast their vote, the electoral process is still ongoing,” as there are still ballots being processed within Perú and abroad. In addition, tally sheets have not been scrutinized yet.

Ramírez also expressed his hope that the “democratic orientation will continue to prevail” in Perú, and called on “citizens and political actors to wait patiently and serenely for the official results.”

According to Ramírez, the mission was made up of 40 specialists of 16 nationalities, who during the voting process were aware only of some “isolated incidents.”

“The scrutiny was carried out in accordance with the established procedures,” said Ramírez, and stated that, once the vote count began, “there were no interruptions in the flow of information, which was made in a public and transparent manner through the ONPE website.”

Ramírez added that they will continue with their work in Perú until the final results are reported, and in the next few days they will present a preliminary report on the elections.

OAS reputation has hit rock bottom following the nefarious role the organization played in Bolivia, where its unsubstantiated claims of electoral irregularities provided a veneer of legitimacy for the coup of the Áñez regime, which ruled without even holding elections for almost one year.

Earlier this week, El Salvador’s broke relations with OAS. ”We made the mistake of putting our trust in the OAS,” declared President Bukele.

Last week, Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard disparaged the Secretary General of the OAS, Luis Almagro, referring to him as the “one of the worst in history.” In addition, the OAS refused to endorse Venezuela’s 2020 parliamentary elections. Founded in 1948 and headquartered in Washington, DC, the OAS is mostly (about 60%) funded by the US.

The official data reported this Tuesday by ONPE indicated that the leftist Pedro Castillo maintains a lead of 75,477 votes over his rival Keiko Fujimori, with 97.4% of the ballots cast in Perú counted.

According to the last official report, the candidate of the leftist Peru Libre party received 50.22 % of the valid votes (8,598,481) thus far, compared to 49.78 % (8,523,004) for the candidate of the right-wing Popular Force party.

This information already contains 99.2% of the votes cast at the national level, while the counting of the votes of Peruvians abroad has currently reached 54.5%.

Featured image: Peruvian presidential candidates Keiko Fujimori of the conservative party Fuerza Popular and Pedro Castillo of Peru Libre. Photo: Sebastian Castaneda/Press Pool.

(Ultimas Noticias) with Orinoco Tribune content

Translated by Orinoco Tribune

OT/SL/JRE