Proposals of National Jury of Elections

In 2012 JNE called an expert meeting to discuss what reforms are needed in the country concerning elections and government forming procedures. Their main conclusion was that there need to be created a code of conducting elections. Currently elections are governed by a variety of laws, but there is no standardized written-down procedure. In opinion of this expert panel, the creation of an electoral code following other Latin American countries would promote unification of the electorate’s understanding of their rights and process of elections; it would streamline and standardize the election procedure and provoke a bigger public discussion about possible further reforms (JNE 2012).

Apart from the general recommendations, there were some specific proposals:

· Creation of a separate voting constituency for the Peruvians living abroad. Peruvian Times (2010) estimates that there are about 3 million Peruvians living outside of country, which is about 10% of the population. A lot of them also send money back to friends and relatives in Peru. According to the article, total annual remittances of this source amount to more than the tourism industry and agricultural exports combined, thus making this category of Peruvians a powerful economic force. As of now, most of votes of Peruvians living abroad are amounted to the district of Lima, further contributing to misrepresentation of voters.

· There is a proposal to eliminate preferential vote and switch attention to the mechanics of parties’ internal democracy, allow voters to directly choose candidates off an open list.

· It is also proposed to change the electoral threshold for electoral alliances. The proposal is to leave the threshold at 5% for single parties, set to 7% for alliances of 2 or 3 parties, 9% for 4 or 5 and so forth, thus further promoting creation of alliances and coalition government.

· It is proposed to split Lima into at least four electoral districts, thus reducing its weigh in elections relative to other regions.

· Finally, it is proposed to split the Presidential and Congressional elections in time to ensure better continuity, stability and efficiency of government.

The process of implementation of these changes can be tracked by the latest Bulletin of JNE dated December 2013. It anticipates the coming New Municipal Elections in Lima that took place on March 16, before the present paper was written. As well, the Bulletin gives an update and a prediction on the development of the election system of Peru. In particular, the following points are emphasized:

· The new variant of the Law of Political Parties prepared by JNE is presented. It deepens the already existing regulations, aligning with three major axes: constitutionality, internal democracy and financing of political parties. It is going to interfere and govern more the internal elections of the parties, ultimately switching to open list of candidates for Congress for the voters to choose them directly (p.14).

· Along with some other reports published with JNE, this Bulletin intends to start discussion of assigning representation quotas of indigenous people in the government. While exact mechanisms of that representation need to be worked out, future campaigns need to put a stronger emphasis on the policies concerning the indigenous population (p.15).

· Registro Nacional de Identificación y Estado Civil (RENIEC) is conducting a major campaign of supplying the population with electronic IDs. These would be used as digital signatures for voting. The new mechanism allows easier accounting of the votes and makes voting frauds more complicated. As well, this mechanism ties in with the intent to include out-of-country Peruvians into voting by allowing them to vote and sign remotely without leaving their location (p. 16).