Peru's double leap into the void
Peru decides this Sunday with whom it will jump into the void: with a trade unionist from the radical left or with the daughter of the dictator, populist and right-wing. 68% of Peruvians did not vote for Pedro Castillo or Keiko Fujimori in the first round, and many will reluctantly do so today to prevent the extremist they fear the most from winning, because they know that both are a danger to democracy. Polarization, so hackneyed in half the world, has reached levels as high as its mountains in the Andean country.
The final between the two candidates is so close, a technical tie according to the latest polls, that the almost million votes of emigrants abroad appear decisive. Something that is not news either: the leader of Fuerza Popular (FP) lost in 2016 by 0.24% against Pedro Pablo Kuzcynski and in 2011, by 2.90% against Ollanta Humala.
Beyond arithmetic, Castillo has established himself as the candidate of deep Peru, between the south and the Andes, which feels ignored by Lima and which considers that it has not benefited from macroeconomic growth so far this century, with a thriving middle class also hit by the pandemic. Anti-Fujimorism, rooted in a good part of the country, is also another of his great supporters.
On the other hand, Fujimori has added to his hard core of followers part of the political establishment of the capital, with intellectuals of the weight of Vargas Llosa and with personalities from different spheres, who do not stop joining his campaign.. Throughout this bloc, fear prevails that the union teacher will impose a communist regime on the country.
A Fujimori voter in Lima.
Both economic proposals are absolutely equidistant. Castillo, who has been forced to soften his plans to prohibit imports to favor national production, is committed to a massive presence of the State. Fujimori maintains his free market agenda with populist overtones, which includes all kinds of bonds to get out of the crisis.
In what they do resemble is in the social rights agenda, both retrograde. Neither abortion, nor homosexual marriage, nor euthanasia, nor gender politics or anything similar, added to the machismo that Castillo does not hide. “He is a Leninist macho,” Fujimori punishes for his part, who has not hesitated to appear on television with his young daughters on election eve.
authoritarian appetites
The main question is whether both will keep promises and agreements or once they are in power they will display their authoritarian appetites. Parliament, which in recent years has become a symbol of bad political arts, is fragmented and either of them will need support from other parties.
Corruption is precisely Keiko's main problem, on which an accusation for money laundering and for leading a criminal organization looms, for which the Prosecutor's Office is demanding up to 30 years in prison.. Whoever may be the first woman at the helm of the country has already suffered more than a year in prison.
It remains to be seen whether, if Fujimori wins today's electoral battle, she will be protected by Article 117 of the Constitution, by which she can only be charged during the presidential term for treason or for dissolving Congress.. There are legal opinions for all expenses, since the judicial process is prior to his possible access to Pizarro's chair.
Castillo, who has not held public office, also suffers the scourge of corruption in his environment. The leader of Peru Libre (PL), the party that has welcomed him, is former governor Vladimir Cerrón, an admirer of Venezuela and Cuba and who was dismissed for his corrupt practices.
Another of the elected PL congressmen, Guillermo Bermejo, under judicial focus is Guillermo Bermejo, accused of alleged ties to Shining Path terrorists.
Castillo has repeated over and over again that he is neither a senderista nor a communist, but the fear that Peru will become a new Venezuela has managed to shorten the distance between the two candidates, especially in the north of the country and in Lima.
The latest statements by the primary school teacher in his closing campaign, in which he anticipated that as soon as he came to power he would impose a decree to expel “those who have come to disrespect” within 72 hours, scared the community of Venezuelan emigrants, more than a million in Peru. The Creoles once again felt singled out by the leftist, who had already threatened to expel the Creoles who offended in an attempt to distance themselves from Nicolás Maduro.
“Castillo is a sea of contradictions, he carries unpresentable people in his backpack and his economic proposal terrifies. But Keiko has had open signal television at will and that had only been seen in the last years of the Fujimorato. That is also scary,” says political analyst Gonzalo Banda.