Five keys to a very polarized Peruvian electoral campaign

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – With more clumsiness on the candidates than strategic successes, the polarized Peruvian electoral campaign is coming to an end, and more than 25 million citizens will choose next Sunday between two opposed visions for the future president of the country.

In the midst of the onslaught of the pandemic, Pedro Castillo and Keiko Fujimori measure forces in a joust that augurs few exits to the serious political crisis in which Peru has been plunged since 2016.

These are five keys that explain these elections.

1.- Antagonistic duel
With 19% of the valid votes, Castillo achieved a surprising victory in the first electoral round, supported by the leftist but conservative vote of the countryside, which raised its voice against Lima’s centralism, the traditional political class, and the systematic corruption of the state apparatus.

Born in the humble Andean province of Chota, this rural teacher and union leader is running for the presidency for Peru Libre, a “Marxist-Leninist” party that advocates a “profound change” in the country.

A new Constitution, a strengthened State with control over the economy, nationalization of companies, and higher taxes for exploiting the country’s natural resources are some of his recipes.

All this contrasts with the continuity offered by the candidate of the right-wing Popular Force party, Keiko Fujimori, daughter and political heir of former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000).

In her third attempt to become the first woman head of state, she is betting on the permanence of the neoliberal economic model and the constitution in force since 1993, approved in a referendum but the result of the “self-coup” committed by her father.

One of the few things that are not at stake is conservatism since both candidates are recalcitrant enemies of the opening of social rights.

2.- A geographic gulf
Beyond confronting disparate ideas, the race shows the abyss that divides Lima from the rural population of the Andes, historically relegated to oblivion by the capital’s elites.

The teacher swept the first round in regions where the majority of the population is rural and poor. He himself embodies the most humble values of the country’s interior, where he maintains his electoral stronghold.

This is supported by the polls, which give a timid but firm general advantage to Castillo, who receives overwhelming support in the south and center of the country -Andean regions-, while the Popular Force candidate dominates in Lima.

3.- “Antis” campaign
Support for Fujimori -who has overwhelming media backing and figures such as Nobel Literature Award winner Mario Vargas Llosa- seems to have reached a ceiling with approximately 40% of the preferences, surrounded by the deep-rooted “antivoto”, which already cost her the defeats of 2011 and 2016.

In fact, accustomed to vote in the second round for “the lesser evil”, many Peruvians find themselves this time in an imbroglio that forces them to weigh two currents defined by the rejection of the rival position: “anti-Fujimorism” or “anti-communism”.

Both candidates tried, with clumsiness and strategic swerves, to capture the most undecided voters during the electoral campaign, but they did not have aces up their sleeves.

Fujimori, who, if he wins the presidency, would avoid a trial for which she might spend 30 years in prison for money laundering, has used the “anti-communist” rhetoric to “warn” of the “danger” of an eventual government of Perú Libre.

To the threat that the country could be “a new Venezuela”, they combined the “terruqueo”, the accusations of terrorist links that the Peruvian right-wing systematically uses to refer to any leftist position.

For his part, Castillo opted for an improvised territorial tour and moderated his speech to distance himself from the controversial figure of Vladimir Cerron, president of Peru Libre, ideologue of the party, and who has been convicted for corruption.

The trade union leader was late in presenting his technical team and was slow in offering a government plan with which he shaded towards the center the original proposals of his party.

4.- No light at the end of the tunnel
The millions of citizens who did not vote for either of them in the first electoral round, where barely one out of every five voters opted for these two candidates, face this cumbersome crossroads.

The scenario portends a meager legitimacy for whoever is finally elected and is unflattering for the way out of the serious political and moral crisis that Peru has been going through for five years, which led to the fall of three presidents and the dissolution of Congress.

Since 2016, Peruvian politics has been marked by the struggles between the Legislative and the Executive, which seem far from ending, as neither Castillo nor Fujimori will have a majority in a new Congress, which will integrate up to ten political forces.

Whoever wins will not have the numbers to guarantee governability, promote fundamental reforms or prevent impeachment attempts and be at the expense of third parties.

5.- Health crisis
Peru will hold the ballot shortly after closing April as the deadliest month since the arrival of the coronavirus, which still does not give truce to the South American country, where the disease has already left more than 1.9 million confirmed cases and tens of thousands of deaths.

The winner will take the reins of a country exhausted in the battle against COVID-19, with saturated hospitals and exhausted health personnel.

Both have promised to put an end to quarantine in the country and agree on the promise to advance with vaccination, leave behind the lock-ups, and increase the health sector’s budget without explaining further details.