Peru hit by pandemic prepares for electoral duel between right and far left

Crises in countries reinforce political extremes. This maxim has been fulfilled to the letter in the Peru who will face in less than a month the second electoral round between the representative of the traditional right, Keiko Fujimori (45), and that of the far left Pedro Castillo (51).

Ms. Fujimori is a veteran of these conflicts, has participated three times as a presidential candidate of the Republic of Peru and on the whole it passed the second electoral round.

The first time he did it was in 2011 and he did it before Ollanta Humala, who at the time embodied a left feared for his proximity to Chavismo. This election prompted Mario Vargas Llosa, speaking out on these candidates, to complain, saying that Peruvians were going to choose “between cancer and AIDS”.

In 2016 he competed with Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and in a very close result – 0.24% of valid votes made the difference – he lost the election.

However, the electoral flow he obtained in the first round (nearly 40%) allowed his political party to obtain an absolute majority in Congress. Keiko and his supporters, who never resigned themselves to winning, of this state power made life impossible for the PPK, to the point that after two years of government and affected by the Odebrech issue, he was forced to resign .

He was replaced by Martín Vizcarra, who after a brief spring with Fujimori, also suffered attacks from a Parliament as hostile to his administration as unpopular on the networks and in the streets. Vizcarra, on the verge of being kidnapped by Congress, shut it down and called for new elections members of Congress.

Paradoxically, this new congress would also vote for the dismissal of Vizcarra in the middle of scandals it affected its management.

Congress President Manuel Merino assumed the presidency, generating such rejection that people took to the streets to express their opposition to the measure. More than loyalty to the released president, it was a cry of rejection of the new Parliament.

Following the deaths of two young protesters and the total discredit of his appointment, Merino had to resign.

It was the turn of Francisco Sagasti, who faced with the reigning crisis was appointed head of the congress and automatically consecrated President of the Republic.

His appointment was the result of a forced consensus that sought a figure uncontaminated by political exacerbation to assume the highest office of the Nation.

Pandemic crisis

All that has been described above happened in the middle of the pandemic comes from Covid-19 which in Peru has struck more than one and a half million people and generated more than 50,000 deaths according to the most conservative data.

In addition, the containment and other measures generated as a result of the health crisis have generated a drop in GDP of around 11.1% and the loss of more than a million formal jobs.

It is within this framework that the elections of this year, the year of the bicentenary of the independence of Peru, are being held. Eighteen political groups participated which, to gain the presidency of the Republic, had to obtain 50% of the votes in the first round.

Never in the history of Peru has this situation occurred, on the contrary, this time the votes which lead the competitors to the second round have been absolutely rare.

Voting arrangements

Castillo comes in with 18.9% and Fujimori did it with just 13.4%. valid votes, for the second round, the polls began to point out Castillo as a clear winner, take a 9% advantage over Fujimori.

Castillo began this stage of the campaign by keeping his radical postures in the face of the certainty that Fujimorista’s anti-voting and the social expectations he embodies did not require another recipe.

For her part, Keiko cannot separate her campaigns and her own image from that of her father, who ruled Peru between 1990 and 2000.

The memory of the Fujimori era

Many Peruvians recognize Alberto Fujimori for having defeated Sendero Luminoso, the terrorist group responsible for around 70,000 deaths in Peru, and the hyperinflation of the first government of Alan García.

The success of the economic model he proposed stopped him in its tracks by applying measures so severe that they made the Minister of the Economy say at the end of the message a sentence that Peruvians will never forget: “May God help us”.

Despite this, Peruvians do not forget that these successes were woefully overshadowed by the acts of corruption and the human rights attacks who lived in the country during the mandate of the “Chino”, the same ones that led him to a sentence that he is still serving. This heavy backpack is worn by Keiko Fujimori.

There are those who say that There is only one political force greater than Fujimorism in Peru and that is anti-Fujimorism..

The head of the teachers’ union

For his part, Pedro Castillo, teacher by profession and native of Cajamarca by birth, became the outsider, a political phenomenon that tends to repeat itself in Peru.

Castillo became famous thanks to his union leadership during a teachers’ strike that lasted around 3 months in 2017 and resulted in the downfall of the Minister of Education.

Castillo is not new to politics, but he consolidated his figure with his actions during this time. His candidacy today represents the political group founded by a regional president also accused of acts of corruption and of belonging to a radical left which does not disgust the Shining Path.

Support for Castillo in no way implies that Marxist ideology has spread throughout the country.

A week ago, the first debate between the two candidates took place on Castillo’s proposal, in the very region where he comes from.

The game was played at home. Fujimori accepted the challenge early on. The result of this first verbal contest seems to have started to generate Fujimori’s recovery. The latest Datum survey, last Friday, indicates that an initial distance in favor of the left has been reduced to 5 points.

A few days ago, Castillo, echoing an ironic proposal I posted on social media, said the next debate should take place in a place where candidate Fujimori was local.

He proposed that it be the Santa Monica Women’s Prison, where Keiko served his time in preventive custody over accusations he received illicit money to pay for previous campaigns. Keiko, showing political reflexes, immediately accepted the challenge.

Eighty years ago, the great historian of the Republic Jorge Basadre described Peru as a problem, but also as a possibility. If I had to rewrite these sentences I would have to say Peru is a big deal and I hope you dare say it is a big possibility too.

Lima, special

CB