The key facts
- Candidates Ruben Quispe Ccapahuara and Salomino Mamani Quispe each received 671 votes in the October 4 election
- The winner was decided by lot — a one-sol coin toss in the presence of a notary, the police, and the candidates’ representatives
- Ccapahuara had advised his representative in advance to choose tails, which is what came up
A tie in votes was settled with a coin toss
In Peru, the winner of the municipal election in the Conima district of the Puno region in the south of the country had to be decided by a coin toss. The vote took place on October 4, and after all ballots were counted it turned out that the candidates had received an identical number of votes — 671 each. Luck was on the side of Ruben Quispe Ccapahuara of the Somos Peru party; his rival was Salomino Mamani Quispe of the País para Todos party. This was reported by the radio station RPP, and the situation is also covered by Life.ru.
How the procedure went
Peruvian law explicitly provides for resolving such situations by a public draw. A special commission organized the procedure in the presence of representatives of both contenders, the police, and a notary. First, the participants drew numbered slips of paper to determine the order of choosing a side of a one-sol coin. The team of the future mayor bet on tails — and tails it was. The draw was filmed by the outlet latribuna.hn.
The winner was confident in advance
Ccapahuara himself told journalists that he came to the draw fully confident of success and had advised his representative in advance to choose the side that ultimately won. Notably, the politician was running in an election for the first time. This is not the only case drawing attention to Peruvian municipal elections: Life.ru previously reportedthat in the Queropalca district, a candidate with the unusual name Hitler Mussolini Simeon Flores won — the Ahora Nación party representative received 229 votes, beating his closest rival by 25 ballots.
