“Nothing of Chavismo”: the Peruvian leftist candidate takes off to calm the markets

LIMA.- The left-wing presidential candidate Pedro Castillo said Thursday that will not nationalize companies and respect the legal rules of Peru, looking for calm the markets which fell after the release of a new poll in which extended their lead over right-wing rival Keiko Fujimori for the June 6 waiver.

The daughter of the imprisoned ex-president Alberto Fujimori, for her part, claimed that the change of speech of the teacher and the union leader Castillo it is “not at all credible”, and what is a “imitation” of the former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

Castillo, who is proposing a referendum to draft a new constitution, has 41% of the voting intentions, while former lawmaker Fujimori, who is running for president for the third time, obtained 26%, according to the poll published by Datum International. financial journal Management.

The survey also showed that 18% of those polled did not know who to vote for and 15% replied that they would cancel their ballot or not vote for any of the candidates.

“I completely reject expressions that say Pedro Castillo is going to nationalize,” Castillo said in an interview with local radio station Exitosa. “We respect the economy and we will give legal certainty to all business people.”

“The people who have made a godsend in this country, don’t worry. They stigmatize us and they want to put words in our mouths, ”said the 51-year-old candidate who emerged on the home stretch of the first electoral round.

The currency fell 1.24%, to 3755/3759 soles per dollar, the fifth consecutive day in red despite the fact that the Central Bank has placed five million dollars in the spot market and in exchange for swaps about 838 million soles. The currency had earlier traded at 3,773 soles, an all-time low. Meanwhile, the Lima Stock Exchange’s benchmark fell 2.2% to 513.15 points.

The role of the state

Castillo, who has won support from poor regions, proclaimed during his campaign that if he won the presidency he would call a referendum to rewrite the Constitution to give the state a more dominant role in the economy.

The government plan of his Peru Free party states that will be nationalized the “strategic sectors” of production, like mining, the key to the local economy. The plan was signed by party founder Vladimir Cerrón, a controversial former leader of an Andean region who was suspended from office on a criminal conviction accused of taking advantage of his position.

“The one who is going to rule is me,” Castillo said, after rejecting the “ideology” of Cerrón – who sent the government’s plan to the National Election Jury – and the radical left-wing views of other members of his political party.

The presidential candidate, who rose to prominence in 2017 after leading a long strike by teachers demanding a salary increase, rejected comparisons made with the leaders of the Latin American left, like Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and former Bolivian President Evo Morales.

“There is nothing of Chavism here,” he said. “I want to say to Mr. Maduro that if he has anything to say about Peru, please deal with his internal problems first; and that he comes to take his compatriots who came, for example, here to commit crimes ”, declared the candidate.

About 800,000 Venezuelans live in Peru after fleeing the humanitarian and economic crisis in the oil country.

This week, Evo Morales supported Castillo, what Keiko Fujimori, What seeks to be the country’s first female president, replied: “Don’t mess with” Peru. During a stop in the Andean region of Junín, Fujimori charged again.

“I think now he’s a real Hugo Chávez clone, he says one thing but does another. During the entire first round, he made it clear that the Constitution was going to change, that it was going to convene a Constituent Assembly, ”he said.

“It is not very credible and not at all credible that he denies or distances himself from Mr. Cerrón, who is the president of the party for which he [Castillo] he’s running, ”the politician said.

Fujimori, que ha sido acusada de lavado de activos, cargo que ella niega, plantea mantener el modelo económico de libre mercado en marcha desde hace tres décadas, periodo en que el país minero creció a una de las tasas más altas de América Latina, pero What last year it fell 11.2% -the worst figure in three decades- faced with the epidemic of the coronavirus pandemic.

In a previous poll on voting intentions, carried out by Ipsos Peru and published on Sunday, Castillo got 41% and Keiko Fujimori 31%, a result that also hit the currency markets and stock indexes.

Reuters Agency

THE NATION