Election day begins to determine the next president of Peru

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A total of 25.2 million voters will be eligible to vote this Sunday, June 6, for the next president of Peru, choosing between candidates Pedro Castillo and Keiko Fujimori as to who will serve during the period 2021-2026.The polls have opend in Peru and abroad.

Around 24.2 million voters can turn out to vote at 83,048 polling stations nationwide, while 997,033 voters abroad are eligible to vote at 3,440 polling stations.

The largest number of polling stations abroad will be set up in America (2,253) and Europe (1,012), while 146 will be set up in Asia, 24 in Oceania, and 5 in Africa.

The voting was scheduled to begin at 7 AM, but the first voting table was installed at 4:55 AM in the José Carlos Mariátegui school, located in the district of Paucarpata, in the province of Arequipa, in the southern Andean region of the same name.

Unlike the first electoral round of April 11, the installation of the tables, in charge of the table members, is going on normally and without the delays that were reported on the previous date.

In Lima, interim president Francisco Sagasti was one of the first authorities to vote at the beginning of the electoral process.

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After casting his vote, Sagasti urged citizens to go “calmly to vote”, and to be aware that voting “is a right and an important responsibility to consolidate democracy”.

The National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE) urged the youngest voters to go early to set up the polling stations in case the polling station members chosen for this task do not show up, and to ensure that the elections are carried out.

Citizens who fulfill their duties as table registrars, until 7 PM when voting will conclude, will receive 120 soles (US$30) as an incentive.

After the closing of the voting, the table members will proceed to count and register the votes, in the presence of the representatives of both parties, and with the complete voting lists, they will deliver them to one of the decentralized offices of the ONPE.

The head of the ONPE, Piero Corvetto, has announced that the first official report of the voting will be known as of 11:30 PM this Sunday, as the electoral records arrive at the counting centers.

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In this sense, he reiterated the call of the Executive authorities to wait calmly for the official results, given that the polls of voting intentions have shown that both candidates are in a technical tie in the preferences.

Castillo, from the leftist Peru Libre party, will cast his vote in his native Cajamarca and then travel to Lima to wait for the official results, while the right-wing Fujimori will vote in the afternoon in the Peruvian capital, where she resides.