Extreme atomization marks Peru’s first electoral round

Dinner is served for a massive night out in Peru, where no less than 18 candidates are vying for the presidential elections today. Polls indicate that there will be no winner and only seven of them, another memorable number, will have the chance to go to the second round.

Will be the most dispersed elections in history, with no firm candidates after last November, the pandemic, recession and instability resulted in chaos that swept through two heads of state.

Yesterday Peru registered a record 384 daily deaths from Covid-19, which marks the worst moment of the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic in the country.

From right to left, former acquaintances or recently converted to politics seek to succeed Francisco Sagasti, the man who ruled the country after the successive falls of Martín Vizcarra and Manuel Merino, who had to resign five days after their taking office.

Keiko Fujimori right and Veronika mendoza on the left, they aspire to be the first woman to hold the presidency. According to the latest survey by Trade-Ipsos, from April 4, the former member of Congress Yonhy lescano, leads the voting intention (10%), followed by Mendoza, the liberal economist Hernando de Soto y Keiko.

Former archer Alianza Lima is also in the discussion. George Forsyth, the teacher and the trade unionist Pedro Castillo (left) and the far-right businessman Rafael López Aliaga, considered the Jair Bolsonaro of Peru.

According to Carlos Meléndez, political analyst at Diego Portales University in Chile, the scenario is both fragmentation and polarization. Peruvian voters go much more to the extreme than in previous elections, where the political center was heavy, and this is where the speeches of the candidates go as well.

“There are many more who assume the preference for the extremes of the left or the right. But there is no crack like in Argentina, it is not a polarization between two. It is an archipelago with many islands, and on every island there is a castaway, ”Meléndez told the nation.

There is obviously a disappointment, he added. “But I think there is both disappointment and anger. Anger takes you to extremes. Everything has to be nationalized or everything has to be privatized. Now the average voter has shifted to the right. This is why the candidates of the center were left out, without an apartment ”.

Parity bodes well a long vigil, on even days, where a few thousand votes will decide the contest. Against this backdrop, with every statement making a difference, the campaign was not lacking in bold expressions among the candidates.

Lescano insisted on dealing with Covid with “Cañazo”, sugarcane brandy, and compared its alcohol recommendation with popular medicine from the Andean highlands and the Amazon. It would be an alcohol-based mouthwash, he explained more than once, to remove viruses and bacteria from the mouth.

“Is it forbidden or irresponsible to do this until the vaccine comes in and the Peruvians die?” There is nothing wrong with that, ”he said of his recipe. Either way, he clarified by saying that the cañazo was not part of his government plan, which he blamed on “evil people.”

Hernando de Soto, in another register, wrote his own recipe against the pandemic, which has already recorded more than 1,628,000 cases and 54,285 deaths. Your solution goes through free up the vaccine market, without purchasing, mediation or distribution by public bodies.

De Soto compared it to the “tuna market” and said the private sector “will compete to provide the best vaccines.”

Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), sentenced to prison for crimes against humanity during her decade in power, said in a series of controversial statements that he was “It is a pride to have the advice of my father” and that he intends to forgive him.

Cañazos, privatization of vaccines and pardons. Music to the ears of your constituents, aberrations for everyone. Media bombardments, provocations, high tension, noise and fury of the conflict.

“Each candidate addresses a different niche to move on to the second round. And that means that none of the candidates exceeds 15% for the moment. Everyone has had some type of statement that seems absurd to a moderate electorate. But they don’t speak to this moderate electorate, they speak to their niche, ”said Meléndez.

Anyone who takes the reins of power will face a grim prospect. The fact of surviving the entire presidency, the corresponding five years, without corruption allegations or political trials that accelerate his replacement, will in itself be a sort of victory.

The period 2016-2021 began with the presidency of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who resigned in 2018 on the brink of impeachment. He was followed by Vizcarra, whose confrontation with Congress cost him his job. You can’t complain: Manuel Merino lasted five days. Then Sagasti took over.

The only stable thing, then, is instability. If someone stopped listening to the news for a week, due to hospitalization, a trip to the mountains, a power outage, or lack of internet, say, they wouldn’t have never discovered that there was an ephemeral president named Manuel Merino. .

In this it intertwines a deep economic crisis, the worst in three decades, with a drop of 11.12% last year in the context of the pandemic.

Because the economist Jorge González Izquierdo, the one who assumes the presidency on July 28, after the first round and the probable tie-up, must simultaneously focus on accelerate vaccination and prepare the ground for take off as soon as the pandemic is behind us.

“With the pandemic outside the Peruvian scenario, the economy will be able to reactivate strongly. And this must include two programs: first, monetary policy must remain as expansive as it is so far. Second, fiscal policy needs to sharply increase investment in infrastructure, including even investing in digitization, ”he added.

But none of that will work, the economist said, if the next head of state fails to negotiate political support in Congress, the grave of so many presidents in recent years: “The Peruvian experience has already shown that if you don’t have congressional support, you are dead.”