President Martin Vizcarra yesterday announced the call for general elections to be held Sunday, April 11, 2021, when voters will elect a new president, 130 members of Congress, and 25 regional governors for a five-year term effective July 28, 2021. The decree was published in the official gazette, El Peruano, today. If no presidential candidate gets 50 per cent plus one of the votes, a runoff will be held June 6.
The deadline to call the elections was July 15, but the President made the announcement yesterday as the Congress was drafting a bill to postpone elections until late May next year. Lawmakers have until September this year to rule on minor procedures such as voting hours, fines (voting is mandatory) and the period by which public officials must resign from their post if they wish to be candidates to Congress.
Given the disruption caused by the Covid-19 health crisis, Premier Vicent Zeballos said the government is considering extending the voting hours (usually 8am to 4pm on the Sunday) to possibly over two days. In the past three months, tens of thousands of people who lost their sources of income because of the quarantine, have moved from Lima and other major cities back to their original home towns and farmlands — citizens vote in the location recorded on their identity documents, and these may not coincide now with their current address. If they have not changed their address by the deadline, they will have to travel to vote where they are registered.
Vizcarra was sworn in as President in April 2018, following President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski’s resignation when the Congress was determined to impeach him at the end of a two-year battle led by Keiko Fujimori’s Fuerza Popular party. Vizcarra, who was first vice-president, has governed since then. Immediate presidential re-election is not permitted.
