The JNE ruled against challenges to Per  2000's legal status, arguing that time for challenging parties

and candidates had expired.

The scandal reinforced the consensus that Peru was failing to meet standards for free and fair elections.

The OAS mission issued bulletins stressing that conditions remained far from satisfactory, and reiterated

concerns regarding inequities in media access, the lack of confidence in institutions, and the need for

timely results in the investigation of the Per  2000 forgery case.  A third report by the Carter Center NDI

mission concluded that  conditions for a fair election campaign have not been established. 

14

  The White

House released a statement voicing its agreement with the Carter Center and OAS missions and called on

Peru to restore confidence in the electoral process and guarantee vote counting procedures.  The United

States Senate introduced a resolution proposing that the U.S. withdraw aid and consideration in

international financial institutions should the elections be deemed unfair by international observers.

a.

The Vote Counting and its Aftermath

The counting of the votes cast in the April 9 first round election proved as controversial as the campaign

that preceded it.  The process extended from the evening of April 9 until the evening of April 12.

Between Sunday (4/9) and Wednesday (4/12), the ONPE issued reports with partial results, raising

suspicions that ONPE was preparing to declare Fujimori the winner in the first round, though quick count

projections by 

Transparencia 

indicated that he had not won fifty percent of the valid vote. The ONPE's

announcement on April 12 that Fujimori had failed to win the fifty percent of the valid vote by a razor 

thin margin put an end to the immediate crisis, but suspicions remained concerning ONPE's conduct

during the first round.

Even before the polls closed on 9 April, ONPE was being criticized by 

Transparencia

 and the OAS

electoral observation mission. Two simulations of vote counting staged by ONPE failed to produce

successful results.  Anxiety over the count grew when initial exit poll numbers were reported by Peru's

leading pollsters, then reversed several hours later by the same pollsters when they announced their quick

count figures.  All three companies contracted by Peruvian television stations showed Toledo ahead, but

Toledo's lead vanished in the quick counts  all of which showed Fujimori getting close to but not

clinching fifty percent. 

Transparencia

 put Fujimori's vote at 48.7 percent.

By night of April 10, however, President Fujimori stood less than one half of a percentage point away

from being declared winner of the first round, and he publicly underscored that the final determination

rested with ONPE and the JNE.  The reaction to ONPE's possible deviation from the quick count figures

was swift. In a joint press conference with 

Transparencia

 officials on 10 April, OAS chief Eduardo Stein

said that delays and lack of explanations by ONPE gave Peruvians reason to believe that  something

sinister  was going on in the counting process.  ONPE's vote count came to an end on Wednesday, 12

April, when Jose Portillo declared Fujimori the winner of the first round with 49.84 percent of the vote

and Toledo trailing with 40.31 percent.  The ONPE did not deliver the official results of the election to

the JNE until April 29, and a second round runoff was immediately set for May 28.

The delay in the reporting of congressional results also raised questions about alleged manipulation of

the preferential vote. 

Transparencia

 noted that parties were actually losing votes as ONPE's process of

14

 It recommended the cessation of harassment against candidates, the Defensoria del Pueblo, and election

observers; the return of television channels 2 and 13, and radio station 1160 to their original owners; and vigorous

investigation into the Per  2000 forgery scandal

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