Peruvian presidential candidate Roberto Sanchez has denounced his country’s recent run-off election as “fraudulent”, rejecting results that show his rival Keiko Fujimori marginally ahead.

On Tuesday, Sanchez held a news conference calling for protests over the weekend.

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He also said he would not recognise a Fujimori presidency, accusing authorities of manipulating votes cast abroad to favour a right-wing government.

“We will not recognise that government and will declare a state of political and social struggle — a movement of popular and patriotic resistance,” Sanchez wrote in a social media post after the event.

Sanchez’s statements are the latest sign of turmoil in Peru’s fraught political system, which has seen nine presidents in power in the span of a decade.

They are also a reflection of the razor-thin margins in the ongoing vote count.

On June 7, the left-wing Sanchez faced the right-wing Fujimori in a run-off. With more than 99.7 percent of the votes counted as of Tuesday, Fujimori is in the lead, with 50.11 percent support.

Sanchez, meanwhile, won 49.89 percent of the votes. Roughly 40,687 ballots separate the two candidates.

Authorities have said they intend to complete the vote tally within 30 days of the election, in time to prepare for the inauguration of the next president on July 28, Peru’s independence day.

But it appears likely that the swearing-in ceremony will be met with controversy. At Tuesday’s news conference, Sanchez raised questions about the legitimacy of the votes cast from abroad.

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Peru set up roughly 2,506 polling tables on foreign soil, and the government estimates that overseas voters account for more than 1.2 million people, or roughly 4.4 percent of the country’s total voter roll.

But Sanchez has criticised a recent decision from Peru’s election authorities, striking down a requirement that tally sheets at polling stations overseas be scanned and digitised.

On Tuesday, he argued that the change in procedure made the voting process vulnerable to interference, resulting in a “fraudulent benefit” for Fujimori.

“This unlawful action renders the run-off elections held at consular offices null and void, as it has compromised the legal certainty of the votes cast by Peruvians abroad,” Sanchez wrote on social media.

He called on the National Jury of Elections (JNE), the country’s electoral court, to “declare as null the June 7 elections held at consular offices for Peruvians abroad”.

His official request focused on election results from 119 Peruvian consular offices where voting was held, “on the grounds that the electoral process was severely compromised”.

No evidence was presented to support his claims that the policy change resulted in Sanchez’s campaign being “robbed” of votes, as he put it.

Fujimori, meanwhile, painted Sanchez as a sore loser. “I believe this is a desperate political act,” she told local media this week.

Claims of fraud, however, have been a frequent part of Peru’s elections in recent years.

Even Fujimori herself has made such allegations in the past. In 2021, she had reached her third presidential run-off, but election results showed her falling behind left-wing candidate Pedro Castillo by narrow margins.

She responded to the setback by accusing the opposition of attempting to “distort and delay the results” and leading public marches to denounce the “fraud”.

Fraud accusations even cropped up after the first round of voting on April 12. Long lines and delays in ballot distribution raised questions about voter accessibility during the general election, and it took nearly a month for the official results to be released.

During the first round, Sanchez had been in a tight race for second place, a position that would assure him of a spot in the run-off.

But as it became clear he would advance to a run-off, the third-place finisher, former Mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, denounced the results as false.

After Sanchez raised claims of malfeasance on Tuesday, critics pointed to comments he made after the first round of voting, where he promised to respect the results and uphold Peru’s democracy.

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“I will respect the results. I make this commitment to the country,” Sanchez told the news outlet Exitosa Noticias on June 5. “If the citizens’ vote declares us the winners, we will celebrate. If it says otherwise, we will acknowledge it and immediately place ourselves at the service of making our Peru great.”

Sanchez, a member of Peru’s Congress since 2021, represented the left-wing Together for Peru (JP) party in this year’s presidential race.

While his campaign generated support among Peru’s rural and Indigenous communities, he faced backlash for his close ties to former President Castillo, who is currently in prison on charges of rebellion and conspiracy against the state. Sanchez was previously a minister in Castillo’s government.

Fujimori, meanwhile, was the nominee for the right-wing Popular Force party, which she founded in 2010.

Her father, Alberto Fujimori, led Peru from 1990 to 2000, during which time he dissolved Peru’s Congress and Supreme Court, drafting a new constitution instead. His decisions while in office — including campaigns of forced sterilisation and extrajudicial killings — would lead him to be convicted of human rights abuses.

Keiko Fujimori, who served as her father’s first lady, has campaigned on a hardline platform, under the slogan, “Peru with order.”