On Sunday, April 12, the presidential elections kicked off in Peru, featuring a field of 35 candidates.

Thousands of citizens turned out to vote early. In most locations, they did so without incident. However, by nearly 4:00 p.m. that day, close to 13% of the polling stations in Lima — the capital and the country’s most populous city — had not yet been set up, according to the NGO Transparencia Perú. The same situation occurred at polling stations designated for voters in the U.S. states of Florida and New Jersey, where members of the Peruvian diaspora were set to participate in the electoral process.

In both instances, the frustration of Peruvians who had been queuing for hours gave way to disillusionment, and many simply returned home.

One detail is key here: both in the capital and abroad, there was one candidate expected to sweep the vote — the conservative Rafael López Aliaga. Coincidence? Some analysts, such as political scientist Agustín Laje, argue that it was not; they contend that the delays in opening polling stations in both locations were deliberately intended to discourage voting in the strongholds of the candidate representing the Popular Renovation Party.

And now, as the word “fraud” begins to gain momentum, all eyes are fixed on the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE) and its chief, Piero Corvetto.

How is it possible that polling stations opened on time in remote locations — such as the Amazon rainforest, the Andes mountain range (the longest in the Americas), or desert regions — yet failed to open in the city with Peru’s most advanced infrastructure, or for voters living abroad?

In addition to the ONPE, the other entities that suffered a loss of credibility on Sunday were Peru’s major media outlets — the newspaper El Comercio, for instance, had run a front-page headline claiming that all electoral materials in Lima were ready — and international observers, such as the European Union.

The head of that mission, the Italian Socialist Annalisa Corrado, went so far as to say she felt sorry for those who had been forced to wait — adding, however, that “so far, no reports of irregularities have been received” — even as hundreds of Peruvians, standing under a brutal sun, watched their opportunity to vote evaporate.

However, national institutions held a different view.

In an extraordinary move, the National Electoral Jury ordered the suspension of the dissemination of results and quick counts, and mandated that voting be extended until Monday, April 13, at polling stations that had failed to open. In doing so, it acknowledged the magnitude of the irregularities.

For its part, the Union of Business Guilds petitioned the National Justice Board to remove Corvetto from office “due to the grave events” surrounding the April 12 electoral process — events which, they argued, “compromise the integrity of the process and public trust, and seriously violate the fundamental principles of our democracy.”

“It is unacceptable that thousands of polling stations were set up late or failed to open altogether due to a lack of electoral materials, thereby preventing citizens from exercising their right to vote. Compounding this issue was the malfunction of the Technological Solution for Scrutiny Support (STAE) system at a large percentage of polling stations,” the guilds asserted.

They added that “it is particularly striking that these grave deficiencies occurred precisely in Lima and Callao — areas where logistics should have operated with maximum efficiency, given their proximity to the electoral material distribution centers.”

In the span of just one decade — from 2016 to 2026 — Peru has endured remarkable political instability and systemic corruption, marked by the succession of eight different presidents. In 2024, the Public Prosecutor’s Office filed a constitutional complaint against former President Dina Boluarte on charges of bribery and illicit enrichment; prior to that, in December 2022, the leftist Pedro Castillo — who remains incarcerated today — attempted to stage a self-coup.

Operation Morrocoy?

On the night of April 16, dozens of citizens in Piura gathered holding signs bearing messages such as “ONPE, you failed us” and “fraudulent and sluggish processes” to express their discontent regarding the results. One of the signs read: “Operation Morrocoy.”

In the context of Venezuelan politics, this name refers to an electoral strategy deployed by the socialist dictatorship of Hugo Chávez. Its objective was to cause intentional delays and sluggishness during voting sessions — particularly in areas where the opposition was expected to garner the most votes.

The name derives from the morrocoy tortoise, an animal known for its slow movement. According to Transparencia Venezuela, the strategy is characterized by delays in opening polling stations, selective technical failures, and obstacles placed in the voting process designed to wear down voters. Reportedly, it was implemented for the first time in 2012 with the aim of discouraging opposition voting.

In 2013, Corvetto participated in an Advance Mission of the Inter-American Union of Electoral Bodies in Venezuela, prior to the elections in which — following the death of Hugo Chávez — Nicolás Maduro would be declared the winner by the National Electoral Council.

The candidate most affected by the evident irregularities in the electoral process in Peru — López Aliaga — shared a video regarding “Operation Morrocoy” in Venezuela, drawing parallels with what had transpired in Lima. “They wore the voters down so that they would not exercise their right to vote. The sluggishness was no coincidence; it was intentional,” he posted.

These anomalies — reported by citizens via social media platforms such as X — were also acknowledged by the National Police’s Anti-Corruption Directorate, which, the day after the elections, arrested the ONPE’s Manager of Electoral Management. He is now the subject of an investigation regarding delays in the delivery of electoral materials.

This marks the first time that the Armed Forces have not been entrusted with the logistics of the electoral process.

Air Force veteran Alexandre Ridoutt Agnoli, commenting on the debacle, recounted how years earlier he had held the responsibility of guarding polling stations. “The procedure was clear, rigorous, and — above all — preventive: electoral materials would arrive between Friday and Saturday; personnel would spend the night on-site under guard; and everything would be secured before Sunday.”

The question, he noted, is inevitable: “Why was a logistical system — one that for years functioned efficiently, relying on the operational capabilities of the Armed Forces and the National Police (which maintain a presence throughout the entire national territory) — replaced by a scheme that has proven to be clearly deficient?”