Elections in Peru: fear, anger and discontent | SW …

From Lima.With fear of the worsening pandemic, anger at the state for the inability to cope with the health and economic crisis, deep discontent with a political class involved in a series of corruption scandals, with few ‘enthusiasm that these elections will be used to get out of the serious crisis, majority disconnection with the various candidates and great uncertainty about the result, this Sunday, just over 25 million Peruvians will go to the polls. They will choose a new president and a new unicameral congress for the next five years. Five representatives will also be elected to the Andean Parliament.

There are eighteen presidential candidates, but none have managed to attract significant support. With a high voter rate, 28% according to a poll this Thursday, which until the end had not defined its vote or said that it will be flawed or white, all the candidates evolve in very low numbers, which barely approach ten percent. . With a high fragmentation of votesIt is almost certain that he will have to go to a second round – which will take place in June – to define the next president. There are seven candidates who arrive with the opportunity to go to the polls, which is unprecedented.

Among the eighteen presidential candidates, there are two women. Both arrive on election day in the group of seven with the possibility of going on waivers. They represent very different options. They are the former legislator Verónika Mendoza, candidate of the left coalition Together for Peru, and Keiko Fujimori, daughter of the imprisoned ex-dictator Alberto Fujimori and treated for money laundering.

The other five candidates in the group fighting for the pass in the second round are the leader of the teachers’ union Pedro Castillo, from the radical left and transformed into a last-minute surprise; ex-congressman Yonhy lescano, which oscillates between the center-left economically and the right socially; the veteran neoliberal economist Hernando de Soto, who was an adviser to the former dictator Fujimori; the extreme right Rafael López Aliaga and the former center-right footballer George Forsyth. All seven are statistically tied, with a difference of less than four points between first and seventh. Keiko, Castillo and Lescano are slightly ahead. But everything is very tight. Emulate Donald trump, the far right López Aliaga threatens to denounce, without any real basis, that there will be fraud if he is not the winner.

“The data changes from day to day, with a very large part of the undecided and seven candidates within the statistical margin of error. We have never experienced times like this in past elections, ”he said. Omar Castro, according to the CPI pollster. Any little last minute highs or lows can change the entire scene.

In this election, the continuity or change of the neoliberal model, imposed on the country over the past three decades, is playing out again. The pandemic has dramatically exposed its deep inequalities and weaknesses, with precarious jobs and a reduced and weakened state, without the ability or willingness to guarantee basic rights, and with a free letter to the market to speculate and negotiate with. health, even in this pandemic. But with hegemonic discourse in the mainstream media in defense of the neoliberal model and demonization of its critics, and fear campaigns against the proposals for change, popular discontent does not translate into a majority vote against the model.

Among the seven who fight at the top – in this case, those at the top are quite low in percentage of support – there are four defenders of the neoliberal model: Keiko, De Soto, López Aliaga and Forsyth. Lescano questions neoliberalism and proposes reforms, but without proposing a change of model. There are two candidates with options that herald the end of neoliberalism: Verónika Mendoza and Castillo.

In this election, there is also the risk of triumph of authoritarian far-right options, embodied by Keiko Fujimori and the fascist López Aliaga, known as “Porky”.

In this unpredictable scenario, last week’s trend favors Pedro Castillo, rural teacher, who leads a radical left proposal, which intervenes at the last minute, collecting the votes of Verónika Mendoza, the candidacy of the left which seemed well placed to argue with the right. A substantial difference between Castillo and Mendoza is the conservative discourse of the former on issues of citizens’ rights, with a stance that opposes policies of gender equality, legalization of abortion and equality of marriage, three issues that the progressive Mendoza defends as a central element of his political program. Castillo had xenophobic expressions against Venezuelan migration, another topic in which he clearly differs from the left led by Verónika Mendoza.

It remains to be seen whether this comeback in the home stretch reaches Castillo to move on to the second round, or only ends up taking votes away from the left-wing candidate who was projected with the possibility of victory. The political, media and economic right, which has launched a dirty war in an attempt to lower the candidacy of Verónika Mendoza, enthusiastically saw this growth of Castillo, which it helped, which is taking votes in Mendoza. Analysts agree that in the second round, moderate Mendoza’s chances of victory are greater than those of radical Castillo.

“The right has built Castillo as the enemy of the left which it can easily defeat. The enemy they don’t want to face is Verónika Mendoza, because she can beat any of her candidates in the second round, especially Keiko Fujimori, her favorite candidate. Verónika Mendoza represents a serious, democratic and viable left alternative to neoliberalism, ”says sociologist Sinesio López, columnist for the daily La República.

Fujimorism seemed excluded as a government option, ended by the processes of corruption against its boss and the destabilizing behavior of its parliamentary magistracy, but in these elections in pandemic and in crisis it comes back to life. This time, with little he can reach Keiko to get for the third consecutive time in the second round.

The possibility of a tie-in between Keiko’s right-wing extremism and Castillo’s left-wing radicalism opens up. This is the second round that Fujimori awaits, convinced that it would be the best scenario for their eventual victory. With the highest rejection rate of any candidate, over 60%, Keiko would lose in the second round, according to polls. But the appearance of the radical Castillo could turn the scene in his favor.

“Keiko has very strong opposition to the vote, but faced with an extremist candidate like Castillo, he may have the possibility of winning,” said Alfredo Torres, director of the Ipsos polling station.

In this Sunday’s elections, it could be ratified that in Peru, things can always be worse.