Peru: the first exit polls are published and several candidates have chances

LIMA.- The general elections culminated this Sunday in Peru with 25 million voters defying the coronavirus pandemic and 18 candidates awaiting review which resolves the closest presidential vote in history.

According to the Ipsos exit poll, leftist teacher and unionist Pedro Castillo leads the vote with 16.1%. They are followed by liberal economist Hernando de Soto and right-wing Keiko Fujimori, both with 11.9%. Then there is former left-wing Congressman Yonhy Lescao with 11%, conservative businessman Rafael López Aliaga with 10.5% and left-wing candidate Verónika Mendoza with 8.8%.

The home stretch saw the arrival of seven of the candidates running with almost identical possibilities, in an election where the renewal of the 130 seats in Congress was also voted and where everything indicates that it will be fragmented into ten groups.

Leftist Castillo, born in Cajamarca, is a 51-year-old schoolteacher whose draft government plan includes the idea of ​​changing the country’s constitution., mainly with the aim of carrying out a reform in which the State would assume a role of businessman to compete with the private ones.

His proposal also includes the nationalization of companies in various economic sectors such as mining, oil, hydropower, gas and communications. “In some cases, only nationalization should be used and not nationalization, compensating the private sector for what has been invested and managing the total profits generated,” he explained.

Peruvians are seeking first to bridge the institutional divide that has opened up during the current period of government, which has seen four leaders pass after successive resignations and legislative challenges.

It also aims to redress the authorities’ response to the coronavirus, which has so far left 1,640,000 cases and nearly 55,000 deaths.as well as a severe economic crisis that has slowed the dynamics of one of the region’s most successful economies over the past three decades.

Four million Peruvians lost their jobs and five million became poor in 2020 amid the pandemic. The recession has affected millions of Peruvians who work informally. Today, a third of the country’s 33 million people live in poverty.

AFP, AP and ANSA agencies

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