Neoliberalism or socialism: Peru chooses between Keiko Fujimori and Pedro Castillo

On the one hand Pedro Castillo promises a change of system, the other Keiko Fujimori “Save” the country from “communism”, in the middle, more than 25 million Peruvians They are called to vote this Sunday during presidential elections marked by the pandemic, false polls and photomontages on the networks.

the rural school teacher and the daughter of the imprisoned former president Alberto Fujimori They closed their campaigns on Thursday with mass events in the central Dos de Mayo square and in the neighborhood of Villa El Salvador, despite the fact that the government and the municipality of Lima have recalled that the concentrations are banned due to the health emergency.

The Peruvians had four presidents since 2018 and they arrive at the poll in an environment strongly polarized between proposals for economic and political change or the defense of the neoliberal “model” that has prevailed in Peru for three decades. In Sunday’s elections, which all forecasts indicate that they will take place “vote by vote”, the leader who will succeed interim Francisco Sagasti will be elected in the next ballot July 28, the day of bicentenary of independence Peruvian.

// Peru added 111,000 coronavirus deaths to its official statistics and became the country with the highest death rate in the world

The one who wins will have to seek agreements in a fragmented Congress avoid the persistence of the instability of the last five years, which has caused the succession of three presidents in five days in November 2020.

Keiko Fujimori, 46, defends the continuity of the neoliberal model created by his father (1990-2000), while Castillo, 51, advocates a active economic role of the state In the economy.

Both have toured the country in recent days to try to capture the voices of undecided, which were around 18% in the latest polls. After a campaign marked by the exacerbation of fears, it is for many choose “the lesser evil” between two candidates who together collected 32% of the votes in the first electoral round, on April 11.

Fujimori wants to “save Peru from communism”

In Villa El Salvador, in the south of the Peruvian capital, Keiko Fujimori performed in another massive rally in which he called on his compatriots to support his candidacy for “Save Peru from Communism”.

The candidate claims that if Castillo wins, Peru will be like North Korea or Venezuela. “A Castillo government will directly affect your pocket,” Keiko told his compatriots, to whom he promised tax breaks and subsidies.

Accompanied by characters like Alvaro Vargas Llosa, son of Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, who until a few weeks ago was his fiercest enemy, the candidate of the right-wing party Popular force She endorsed the idea she has brandished throughout the campaign that the vote is not for her, but for the “future” of the country.

Fujimori also ratified several of his campaign proposals, aimed at Peru to achieve “a change, but not backwards, but forward” and claimed that he will promote control of Covid-19, build new hospitals, will open one hundred oxygen factories and begin a mass vaccination campaign.

// Shining Path murdered 18 people in Peru, called for boycott of second round

He also reiterated that he will promote the opening of SMEs with tax exemptions and the requirement of operating licenses, will seek the construction of “formality” and that the Peruvian treasury will stop “abusively” persecuting entrepreneurs.

The candidate, who denies that her many spending proposals are populist and ensures they have adequate funding, has spoken of giving loans of about $ 2.5 billion for small businesses and insisted on giving a bonus of $ 2,500 to each of the more than 185,000 deadly covid families in the country.

Castle promises “A government of the people to defend the people”

Castillo, who denies being a Communist or Chavist, says if his rival wins, Peru will continue to be mired in corruption and inequality. “No more poor in a rich country”, repeat like a mantra.

In a massive closing ceremony, Castillo asserted that in Peru “the time has come to do not look at the ideologies, nor the color of the skin“To” realize the cry of the people “for a government which recovers” the wealth from have an industrialized and prosperous country”.

The candidate of the left party Free peru addressed his supporters from the balcony of the headquarters of the General Confederation of Workers of Peru (CGTP), the largest trade union center in the country, to tell you that it hopes that “the clamor of the people here will come true in a few hours”.

He assured that if he wins the elections, he will be “A government of the people to defend the people“And reiterated proposals such as” recover “the natural gas of the Camisea field and” convene a National Constituent Assembly “to modify the Constitution of 1993, promulgated under the government of Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), the father of Keiko .

Castillo, however, stressed that he would respect the current Constitution “until the people decide it” and asked the Peruvian people and businessmen for “tranquility” after rejecting accusations that they claim he is “communist”, “chavista” and wants to “steal” private property.

He also reiterated his commitment to ensure that all Peruvians over 18 are vaccinated against covid-19 on December 31 and to work to revive the national economy, hard hit by the pandemic.

A virtual tie

The latest polls published show that the two candidates practically linked. “It is only on June 6 that we will know what the definition of Peruvians is, whether to continue on the path of the past or choose a new path,” he told the news agency. AFP analyst Hugo Otero.

If Keiko Fujimori wins, it will be the First president from Peru, but if you lose you have to go to corruption scandal trial of the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht, who also splashed four former Peruvian presidents.

She also carries the controversial legacy of her father, whose government was marked by human rights violations and corruption.

Castillo his rivals try to tie him to the political arm of Luminous path, which sowed violence between 1980 and 2000, but he remembers that as a member of Cajamarca’s armed “peasant rounds” he resisted Maoist guerrilla incursions.

The first official results will be known around 11 p.m. local Sunday, that is to say in the early hours of Monday in Argentina.