The historic militant and leader of Acción Popular, Victor Andrés García Belaundesaid it all after the decision of the National Election Jury (JNE) to annul the party’s internal elections, leaving its political group out of the next general elections. In an interview with Perú21, ‘Vitocho’ launched harsh criticism against Alfredo Barnechea, whom he directly accused of having benefited from internal electoral fraud.
García Belaúnde described the current situation as the product of an “excessive, disproportionate, unrealistic, selfish, irresponsible and frivolous” ambition of the candidates in dispute. When asked about Barnechea’s role, the former parliamentarian was forceful:
“He has benefited completely. There has been fraud on the part of the two candidates […] but they have chosen him as the winner. It’s like if they give you a car and you’re happy, but you discover later that it was given to you by someone who stole it. You return it. Here we don’t want to give anything back,” he said.
ALLIANCE WITH ‘THE CHILDREN’.
‘Vitocho’ denied Barnechea’s accusations of alleged personal benefits and counterattacked by revealing links between the former presidential candidate and the group known as ‘The Children’ of Congress. “He lies. Rather, he has benefited from making an alliance with ‘Los Ninos’. Ilich López works for him and Mrs. Pajuelo, who makes the big change (of votes), also works for Ilich López,” he assured.
García Belaunde explained that the official figures show the irrationality of the results: “If he got 27% of the votes and I got 24%, how is it possible that he got 37 delegates and I got 3? That is the best proof of fraud.”
“In other words, rather he, who criticized “The Children” so much, turns out that now he relies on “The Children” to commit the fraud that has been done.”
Finally, regarding Barnechea’s threat to denounce the members of the JNE and persecute them for “money laundering”, García Belaunde strongly condemned these expressions: “It is a thuggish and criminal attitude that I do not approve of. You cannot threaten a judge who sentences you.”
Barnechea, in statements to channel “N”, offered this evening an apology to the members of the JNE. “It seems that I went too far with some adjectives. I believe in the institutions of the republic, including the JNE, and I want to clearly and explicitly apologize if I went too far with them,” he said, specifying that the constitutional complaint against the head of that organization, Roberto Burneo, was presented by a congressman (Ilich López).
