“Keiko represents the lesser evil.” Vargas Llosa asks to vote for Fujimori in Peruvian elections

LIMA.- The winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Mario Vargas Llosa asked Peruvians to support the right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori in the waiver of the presidential elections in Peru to be held in June.

“I have systematically fought Fujimorism, as I have done with all the dictatorships of the left or the right, but I believe that in the next elections – those of the second round – Peruvians should vote for Keiko Fujimori, because he represents the lesser evil ”, wrote Vargas Llosa in his weekly column for the Spanish newspaper The country.

“With her in power, there are more possibilities to save our democracy, while with Pedro Castillo I see none,” he added. Vargas Llosa, a leading figure in Peruvian politics who ran for president and lost in 1990 to the now-imprisoned ex-president Alberto Fujimori, took sides against Keiko twice, in 2011 and 2016, supporting leftist Ollanta Humala and the candidate. Promercado Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.

Keiko Fujimori will face left-wing candidate Pedro Castillo, who surprised with the most votes in the first round of the April 11 presidential election. Peru Libre, the party of the 51-year-old union leader and primary school teacher, has vowed to reform the constitution to weaken the business elite and renegotiate contracts with mining, oil, gas and communications companies.

In his column, Vargas Llosa said that a Peru ruled by Castillo would have “all the characteristics of a communist society” and argued that the candidate has ideas “of the far left in the economic field and of the extreme. right in the social field. “

For her part, the leader of the Popular Party of Fuerza indicated that after having communicated with the Nobel Prize for Literature, she expressed her “commitment to ensure respect for democracy, freedom of expression and the independence of powers. in the event of elected president “.

“I appreciate the support and greetings from writer Mario Vargas Llosa. Right now we are not only facing pandemic and hunger, but we are also facing communism ”, told the press Keiko Fujimori who also thanked him on Twitter.

Keiko Fujimori is a deeply controversial figure, as his father, former President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) was jailed for human rights violations in the 1990s. The presidential candidate has promised to release him. ‘he comes to power.

Vargas Llosa, a staunch opponent of the Fujimori family for 30 years, also called on Keiko to protect democracy, free speech, the rule of law and keep Montesinos in prison, but He did not raise the issue of pardon to the ex-president.

The last time the Madrid author of “The Town and the Dogs” campaigned was in 2016, when he called for a vote for Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a former Wall Street banker who had an opaque government and resigned in March 2018 punctuated by corruption. scandal of the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.

With all the votes counted by the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE), the teacher of the rural school and the daughter of the imprisoned former president obtained respectively 19.06% and 13.36% of the votes in the election. ‘a first round where he had a record of 18 candidates.

Peru is now heading towards a tie between two candidates located at the antipodes, which together they only got 32% of the vote in the first round. The laureate will take office on July 28, the date of commemoration of the bicentenary of the country’s independence, currently in recession due to the pandemic and virtually ungovernable since 2016.

Reuters Agency

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