RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Fifteen days before the second round of elections in Peru, anti-Fujimorism took to the streets in more than twenty cities in an electoral campaign in “defense of democracy” and against the presidential candidacy of authoritarian right-wing Keiko Fujimori, whom it considers “a threat” to the country.
“It cannot be that a person who is going to run for the presidency has such big allegations of stealing millions of dollars, apart from being the daughter of a dictator. It is something undeniable”, declared a young university student who was demonstrating in the center of the capital.
Under the slogan “For Peru, Keiko won’t go”, thousands of Peruvians raised their voices this Saturday in a march that extended to several localities of the national territory and abroad, in rejection to the candidate for the Popular Force party, who next June 6 will face the leftist Pedro Castillo in the second round that will define the next president of the country.
The anti-Fujimorista campaign was launched by a coalition of activists, union leaders, victims’ relatives, representatives of cultural organizations, and university students who define themselves as committed to “defend Peru from a new Fujimorism”.
“Pedro is decent, Keiko is a criminal”, “for justice and dignity, Fujimori never again”, chanted the demonstrators in unison, carrying banners, posters and photographs with the faces of victims of the regime of Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), Keiko’s imprisoned father who is serving 25 years in prison for crimes against humanity.
Thus, with explicit support to the candidate of Peru Libre, this independent movement called to vote “for the memory of the victims” who during the years of the Fujimori government suffered assassinations, disappearances, and forced sterilizations.
“It is vital that the people have memory. We must choose with memory, courageously, we must opt for an option of change and not for those who want to take us back twenty or thirty years to the Fujimori dictatorship”, said lawyer Marite Bustamante.
THE MARCH TRANSCENDS BORDERS
This demand in “defense of democracy” was felt in cities all over Peru, such as Cusco, Cajamarca, Ayacucho, Arequipa, and Piura. However, the Peruvian community abroad also called for actions in other countries such as Australia, Brazil, Holland, Chile, the United States, France, England, and Germany.
However, the most massive demonstration took place in Lima, where several hundreds of citizens gathered at 4:00 PM in the central San Martin square and walked through the streets of the historic center of the capital.
An hour earlier, victims of forced sterilizations held a protest rally in front of the Palace of Justice.
During the festive rally in the capital, a group of young people cleaned the Peruvian soccer team’s jerseys with soap and water to condemn that national symbols be “stained with Fujimori’s values”, in a direct denouncement to the recent and polemic pronouncement of several figures of the team who, in a clear message of support to Fujimori, asked the country to “wear the jersey” in favor of “freedom and democracy”.
COUNTERWEIGHT TO THE “ANTI-COMMUNIST” CAMPAIGN
Rather than concentrating efforts to capture votes in favor of one or the other candidate, the polarized electoral campaign for the second round has been marked by constant attacks and attempts to delegitimize the rival positions, giving the electoral process an air of a plebiscite between anti-Fujimori and anti-communism.
Thus, these anti-Fujimorist marches are a counterweight to the campaign, extolled by the Lima media with support from public figures such as the Nobel Literature Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa and even private companies, that the Peruvian right-wing is developing against the candidate of Peru Libre,
For weeks now, for example, the main fixed advertising company of the capital has, on its own initiative, filled the main avenues of Lima with posters against “communism”, “for Peru,” and against “the danger” of the country becoming a “new Venezuela”.
The latest electoral polls give the trade unionist teacher a slight advantage over his contender. In this line, the Datum agency poll published this Friday determined that Castillo would obtain 53.1% of the valid votes against Fujimori’s 46.8%.