Voting ended on May 28 in Peru's presidential runoff following a week of confusion and protest during which the opposition candidate withdrew and called a boycott, and all the election monitoring groups refused to observe the vote.
President Alberto Fujimori, whose candidacy for a third consecutive term was already widely viewed as unconstitutional, was supposed to face opposition candidate Alejandro Toledo of the Possible Peru coalition. However, Toledo announced his withdrawal from the race on May 22, charging that conditions for fair elections did not exist and that Peru's vote-counting computer system is vulnerable to high-tech fraud.
Doubts still remain about the April 9 first round, in which Fujimori was said to have won 49.84% of the vote to Toledo's 40.31%; election officials have still not explained how the number of ballots cast exceeded the number of voters by more than 1.4 million.
Toledo called on his supporters to stay home during the second round or spoil their ballots by writing "No to fraud" on them. Fujimori insisted that Toledo never officially withdrew and that the runoff would therefore take place as planned.
On May 28, after the polls closed at 4pm, riot police fired tear gas at groups of demonstrators in Lima who tried to attend a protest rally called by Toledo.
On May 25, the National Elections Board voted three to two against postponing the elections. Protests and civic strikes broke out immediately across the country: police in Lima cracked down on demonstrators with tear gas; dozens of people were arrested in the city of Iquitos for blocking roads; truck drivers struck in Cuzco; and students clashed with riot police in Arequipa.
The Organization of American States, the US government and the European Union have all vowed to reject the outcome of the runoff. Clinton administration officials said on May 26 that it was too early to consider any reduction of aid, however. Peru and Bolivia would receive some "anti-drug" funds in a massive aid package for Colombia that Congress is considering.
[Abridged from Weekly News Update on the Americas. WNU is published by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York. A one-year subscription (52 issues) is $25. To subscribe, send a check or money order for US$25, payable to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012. Please specify if you want the electronic or print version. For more information, contact <wnu@igc.org>.]