LEFTIST candidate Pedro Castillo declared victory in the Peruvian presidential election run-off on Tuesday, after receiving a majority of the votes with all ballots now counted.

He called on the election authorities to “respect the popular will” after his rival, the right-winger Keiko Fujimori, cried foul with unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud.

“Tonight should not only be one of hullabaloo and joy, but of great responsibility,” he told supporters in the Peruvian capital, Lima.

“Today the real battle begins to end the great inequalities here in our homeland.”

Mr Castillo finished 44,058 votes ahead of Ms Fujimori, the daughter of disgraced former president Alberto Fujimori, currently serving a 25-year jail term on a number of charges including kidnapping, corruption and embezzlement.

She is also under investigation on charges of corruption and money laundering, spending 13 months behind bars between 2018 and 2020.

Last week prosecutor Jose Domingo Perez requested that Ms Fujimori be returned to pre-trial custody, alleging that she had been in contact with a witness, violating the terms of her parole.

She insists that the charges against her are politically motivated.

More than 18.8 million Peruvians voted in the election, a turnout of nearly 75 per cent.

But Ms Fujimori has lodged a number of legal complaints, meaning it could take weeks before the electoral authorities formally declare Mr Castillo the winner.

His Free Peru party has dismissed claims of fraud while international observers, including the Organisation of American States (OAS), have declared that the elections were free, fair and transparent.

Mr Castillo, a Marxist-Leninist who shot to prominence after leading two national teachers’ strikes, urged the authorities to confirm the result quickly and put to bed any uncertainty.

“We’re not going to allow an oppressed people to continue to be discriminated against for more years,” he said. “Things have been put on the table democratically, and there needs to be a democratic way out.”

The leftist leader has already declared victory, updating his Twitter profile to read: “President-elect of the Republic of Peru (2021-2026).

“A new time has begun,” he wrote, with a photograph of himself with his election slogan: “No more poor in a rich country.”