Peru Election Board Rejects Candidacies of Two Elected Lawmakers: 'We Made a Mistake'

The central Special Electoral Jury (JEE) in Peru's capital, Lima, has rejected the applications of two individuals from the Renovación Popular party. Although they were elected and declared as lawmakers, they had applied for candidacy as local council members (regidores) in local elections. The candidates, Leo Miguel De Paz Lancho and Aldo Antonio Bravo Quispe, initially had their candidacies accepted due to a technical error; however, the Board later corrected this situation, deciding that their requests were legally inexecutable. In the review, the Board secretary officially confessed in a decision dated 30 June that the necessary legal filter was not applied for these candidates and that personnel were negligent while examining the candidacy files.

The primary reason for the rejection of these candidates' applications is that, according to Peru's laws, a person cannot run for local office while simultaneously holding the title of elected lawmaker. The JEE determined that De Paz and Bravo had already been declared lawmakers and that this status continued, making the registration procedures for their election as council members for the Lima Municipality contrary to procedures. Although the candidates submitted a resignation letter on 1 July stating they had withdrawn from the party's candidate list, the Board emphasized that their current legal status had not changed and declared their applications invalid.

According to the details of the event, while the candidacies of other important party figures Rafael López Aliaga and Guillermo Valdivieso were rejected in the JEE's first decision dated 30 June, the oversight of these two individuals' files was described as a 'mistake'. The inconsistency in the party's candidate list brought up the question of why elected lawmakers were nominated in local elections and caused the Board to step back. This process demonstrated how sensitive the oversight mechanisms in the election process are and how personnel errors can turn into a political scandal.

The point that complicates the matter further concerns the situation of party leader Rafael López Aliaga. Although López Aliaga was elected as a senator, he had declared that he wished to resign from this duty and preferred to run for mayor, submitting this to the relevant authorities. However, the JEE stated in unequivocal terms that a legal status such as elected senatorship cannot be changed merely by a person's will or a declaration. It specified that the title of senator, published in the official gazette, remains valid as long as there is no official decision to cancel it.

In the final decision, the JEE did not accept López Aliaga's desire not to assume office or the documents he submitted as a sufficient argument to change the legal status. It was emphasized that official correspondence remains a declaration of personal will and does not create a legal outcome, and it was reported that the 'Elected Senator' status would only end with the cancellation of official authorized channels through official means. This development sets an important precedent for how candidacy processes and legal statuses work in Peruvian politics, while revealing both the oversight responsibility of election boards and the legal limits of candidates.