Police raid Peru’s election officials after outrage over slow vote counting. election news

Anti-corruption police collected material from the homes of election officials, including former office leader Piero Corvetto.

Police in Peru’s capital Lima have raided the home of the former head of the national election agency, amid growing frustration after the country’s presidential election.

As of Friday, the results had not been finalized for the presidential race, which took place on April 12.

Delays in ballot delivery led to voting being extended an extra day in some areas and slow vote counting led to allegations of wrongdoing. But the EU’s election mission in Peru found no signs of fraud.

Law enforcement were seen entering the home of Piero Corvetto, the former head of Peru’s Office of National Electoral Procedures (ONPE), on Friday under a judicial warrant.

According to local broadcaster RPP, officers from the local anti-corruption police unit were tasked with removing mobile phones, laptops and documents.

The homes of five other officials were also targeted in the police raid, as well as the offices of Galaga, the private company that transports election ballots.

Corvetto resigned on Tuesday, although he denied any wrongdoing or irregularities in the election process. In a statement he said he hoped his departure would boost public confidence.

On Friday, his lawyer, Ricardo Sanchez Carranza, told news agency Reuters that a judge authorized the raid, but rejected prosecutors’ request to keep Corvetto in preliminary custody.

But one of the leading presidential candidates, the former far-right mayor of Lima, Rafael López Aliaga, has accused Corvetto of being a “criminal” and promised to pursue him “until he dies.”

López Aliaga is currently in a close race for second place in the presidential election.

With 95 percent of the ballots cast, right-wing candidate and former first lady Keiko Fujimori is in first place with 17 percent of the vote. He is confident of advancing to the run-off on June 7.

Meanwhile, López Aliaga is in third place with 11.9 percent, behind leftist congressman Roberto Sánchez with 12.03 percent.

About 20,000 votes separate Sanchez from López Aliaga, who has condemned the election as illegitimate, though he has yet to provide evidence to support that claim. Nevertheless, he called the vote tally “unparalleled election fraud in the world.”

The final results are expected on May 15.