The election in Peru heads to a heart attack ending between Castillo and Fujimori

“To the extent that there is more rural vote than abroad, it is likely that the lines will cross again, but we still do not know, what we can say is that uncertainty continues,” said Alfredo Torres, from Ipsos Peru, to America TV.

“It is a country that is very divided with two very different visions of what is wanted for the future,” he added.

The margin between the two has been narrowing from the six points of separation that were in the first report offered late on Sunday by the ONPE, when at 42% of Fujimori’s scrutiny he obtained 53% of the valid votes compared to 47% of his rival.

On Sunday night Castillo, 51, the son of peasants and who has promised to reform Peru’s constitution and mining laws, called on his supporters to “defend the vote,” but later called for calm.

Castillo’s Peru Libre party said on Twitter that the candidate, who had been in his rural northern native district to vote, would arrive in the capital Lima in the next few hours on Monday, “to enforce the popular will.”

“Only the people are going to save the people. Be careful, let us not fall into any concern (…), I ask you for measure,” Castillo said this Monday morning to his followers in his stronghold in Cajamarca, more than 900 km away. north of Lima, where he will travel to await the end of his ballot box.

The probable end of photography could lead to days of tension, as the vote highlights the sharp division between the capital, Lima, and the interior of the country, which has driven Castillo’s unexpected rise.

Lucía Dammert, a Peruvian academic based in Chile, predicted that the next few days would be feverish, with possible challenges to the votes and requests for a recount. Dammert predicts protests especially if Fujimori wins, according to a Reuters report.

“What is clear is that if Keiko wins, he will have to lock himself up in a fortress in Lima and endure what happens in the rest of the country,” he said.

“Whoever wins, has to dialogue with the government and other political forces, we are in a polarized country,” political analyst Andrés Calderón told Reuters.

Fujimori, 46, daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori, imprisoned for human rights abuses and corruption, also called for “prudence, calm and peace from both groups.”

A favorable count for Castillo

The unofficial quick tally of the ballots by pollster Ipsos on Sunday gave Castillo a technical tie with Castillo slightly ahead, getting 50.2% of valid votes to Fujimori’s 49.8%.

The quick count, which has a margin of error of 1%, “has never been wrong” in the Peruvian presidential elections, said Fernando Tuesta, former head of ONPE.

The slower-to-count rural vote is expected to help Castillo, although votes not counted abroad could help Fujimori.

“Unless the very tight scenario shown by the quick count turns out to be wrong, it seems that several days of great uncertainty lie ahead,” the report states.

In this way, the tense and tight end of the presidential elections of five years ago is repeated, when in 2016 Pedro Pablo Kuczynski won Keiko Fujimori herself by just 40,000 votes, taking 50.12% of the votes compared to 49.88% of the daughter and political heir of former President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000).

Thus, neither Fujimori nor Castillo can be declared the winner of the most polarized and divided elections in Peru’s recent democratic history.

If there are no setbacks this Monday, the results may reach irreversible levels, but vote challenges are not ruled out, which would delay the definition in case of a narrow difference.

An electoral observation mission of the Organization of American States (OAS) is in Peru monitoring the elections, led by Rubén Ramírez, former Foreign Minister of Paraguay, and has so far supported the work of the Peruvian electoral authorities.

Two visions of country

Beyond confronting two candidates whose parties are located at the antipodes of the ideological political spectrum, these elections have been taken by the majority of Peruvians as a plebiscite on the neoliberal economic model that former president Fujimori implemented 30 years ago.

The two candidates promised vastly different remedies for a country that has suffered corruption scandals in recent years and a sharp economic downturn triggered by the world’s deadliest COVID-19 outbreak by population size.

Fujimori has promised to follow the free market model and maintain economic stability in Peru, the world’s second largest copper producer, with a “heavy hand.”

Keiko Fujimori, married with two daughters, may end up being the first president of Peru, a goal for which she has worked 15 years since she took on the task of rebuilding almost from the ashes the right-wing political movement founded by her father in 1990.

But losing the ballot would not only imply his third defeat at the polls, but he will have to go to trial with the risk of ending up in jail.

Fujimori is under the scrutiny of the prosecution for the case of the illegal contributions of the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, a scandal that also affected four former Peruvian presidents. He has already been in preventive detention for 16 months for this cause.

Castillo, who has become a champion of the poor, has promised to reformulate the Constitution to strengthen the role of the state and keep more of the profits from mining companies.

The candidate came out of anonymity Fujimori is under the magnifying glass of the prosecution for the case of the illegal contributions of the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, a scandal that also affected four former Peruvian presidents. He has already been in preventive detention for 16 months for this cause.

The tense election, which came after Peru passed through three presidents in a week last year, has shaken its currency and debt markets, while mining companies fear Castillo could usher in more state intervention in the economy. sector.

However, analysts also say that whoever wins will have a weakened mandate, given the strong divisions in Peru, and will face a fragmented Congress in which no party will have a majority, which could paralyze any major reform.

The winner will assume his mandate on July 28, the day that Peru will commemorate the 200 years of its independence, a party mourned by the economic and health crisis by registering more than 180,000 deaths due to the COVID-19 pandemic, making it the country with the world’s highest death rate from the coronavirus.

Last year, the health crisis forced the economy to semi-paralyze for more than 100 days, which led to a recession and a drop in GDP of 11.12% in 2020.

With information from AFP, EFE and Reuters