Peru’s election board will call new elections for the mayor of Lima and its city councilors towards the end of this year, if a referendum on Sunday is successful in removing the current authorities from office.
The president of the board, Francisco Tavara, said that more than one-third of the 40 authorities need to be voted out of office in order to have new elections.
“We’ll have to see the budget. More than one-third [of the municipal council] has to be revoked, only then can we call elections for the end of the year,” Tavara said, according to daily El Comercio.
The leading promoter of the recall, Marco Tulio Gutierrez, had asked the board to move the election up to July in the event that Mayor Susana Villaran and city councilors are removed from office.
Villaran took office in 2011 for a four-year term. The mayor has been heavily criticized since winning the election in late 2010, and it is likely that she will be removed from office early, according to recent polls.
Supporters of the recall say she has been an ineffective manager of the city. The mayor’s allies, however, point to several of her reforms to clean up the city, and her success in securing the city’s investment grade and obtaining more than S/.7 billion in private investment for infrastructure projects. Her allies also openly accuse that the recall vote is being promoted by shadowy figures affected by Villaran’s efforts to curb corruption, particularly in the chaotic public transport system.
