Peru elections: Castillo maintains lead over Fujimori with 99.7% of the votes counted

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The leftist candidate Pedro Castillo of the Peru Libre party maintains a lead of 71,764 votes over his rival Keiko Fujimori, of the right-wing Fuerza Popular party, in the Peruvian presidential elections, when 99.795 percent of the votes have been counted.

According to data from the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE), Castillo has received 8,735,448 votes, while Fujimori obtained 8,663,684, which means a reduction of the advantage that the leftist candidate has maintained in the last hours.

Castillo has so far obtained 50.2 percent of the votes, while Fujimori has 49.7 percent, in a tight count in which only a few thousand votes remain to be counted.

In the next few hours, this margin may narrow as votes from abroad continue to be counted, especially from countries such as the United States and Spain, where there is a large Peruvian community.

It will also be necessary to review some minutes with technical irregularities, errors in filling out or with contested votes.

Citizen participation has been estimated at 74.7 percent of the electorate.