Pedro Castillo has announced that as president of Peru, he will declare a health emergency

Lima, June 24 (RHC)-- Pedro Castillo has announced that as president of Peru, he will declare a health emergency, while the claims of his rival, Keiko Fujimori, suffered a setback in her bids to reverse his defeat.

The rural teacher who won in the official vote count mentioned the measure in a message on Twitter, saying: "In my government, people will not die for lack of money, health will be declared an emergency."

Next to the message appears a photo of Castillo at the wake of the little boy of a humble couple, who died because his parents did not have money for the treatment of his illness.

Castillo also traveled to Mala, 92 kilometers south of Lima, to inquire about the situation of dozens of people injured during last night's strong earthquake that was felt in the capital, and lamented the shortcomings of the local health center.

Meanwhile, Keiko Fujimori's lawyers failed in their attempt to get the National Jury of Elections (JNE), the highest electoral court, to accept to investigate their requests to nullity 10 voting records with allegedly forged signatures -- something that could have only be denounced on the day of the balloting, on June 6th.

The jury, with a majority of three out of four members, also dismissed the demand that the JNE provide the electoral roll to Fujimori in order to investigate the alleged falsification and argued that the appeal phase does not allow to seek or present new evidence and passed the matter to the Prosecutor's Office.

The magistrates also considered that none of the auditors of the ballot, the JNE, the National Office of Electoral Processes, the Public Prosecutor's Office, the Armed Forces and the Police, nor the parties' representatives reported objections to the mentioned minutes.

Neither did the JNE accept to analyze hundreds of other nullity petitions presented extemporaneously and that Fujimori's supporters tried to validate with arguments that the court considered invalid.

Pairs of children's shoes and toys are seen at a memorial in front of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School [File: Dennis Owen/Reuters]