Peru heads to runoff election after presidential vote split

Bloomberg

Peru is heading to a presidential runoff in June after early results showed a fragmented and politically divided nation with no candidate getting anywhere close to the threshold needed to win outright.
As voting stations closed Sunday, Pedro Castillo, a community organiser and union leader who appeared sixth on the polls just a week ago, was leading the race with 18.1% of the votes, according to a closely-watched quick count by the Ipsos polling firm.
He was followed by Keiko Fujimori, an ex-legislator, with 14.4% and conservative businessman Rafael Lopez Aliaga with 12.4%. Hernando de Soto, an economist, was in fourth place with 10.8% of the vote, according to the unofficial quick count.
The final positions could change in the coming hours as the country’s electoral authority, ONPE, starts updating official tallies. With fewer than 12% of the ballots counted, Castillo had 15.8% of the vote, followed by De Soto with 14.5% and Lopez Aliaga with 13.1%, ONPE said in its first data release at midnight in Lima. Early results tend to over-represent urban voters. The top two candidates will meet in a June runoff and the winner will take office on July 28.
A week ago, Castillo seemed like a long-shot candidate, hovering in sixth place in two main polls. The fact that he was sidelined with Covid-19 for a full month also seemed to dim his chances. But his folksy, anti-establishment charm won him followers in Peru’s poor rural areas. Castillo wears a straw hat to most of his public appearances including the presidential debates, and on Sunday he went to vote on horseback.
In campaign documents, the Free Peru party praises the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez for their foreign policy and
regional solidarity.
And Castillo has talked about keeping more of the nation’s mining wealth in the country, boosting the education budget and nationalising strategic sectors. He’s also a proponent of rewriting the constitution.
Fujimori has pitched herself as a tough-on-crime, pro-business candidate. But she’s also a polarizing figure. The daughter of jailed President Alberto Fujimori, she is running for office while out of prison on bail, awaiting trial on charges that she accepted more than $1 million in illegal campaign contributions during her unsuccessful 2011 presidential bid.
In a country where every elected leader but one since 1985 has either been impeached, imprisoned or sought in criminal investigations, Fujimori is seen as part of the problem by many voters. A Datum poll from March showed she had a “rejection” rate of 62% — higher than any other candidate. She has always denied the allegations and says she’s the victim of a political witch-hunt.
Peruvians also voted Sunday for the 130 members of the unicameral congress. The Ipsos exit polls suggested that the legislature will be split among at least 10 parties — none of them with more than 28 seats. That will make coalition-building a priority for the new president.
Voters wearing protective masks wait in line to cast ballots at a polling station during the first round presidential elections in Lima, Peru, on Sunday, April 11, 2021. Peruvians are voting for president and congress in a crowded election that will determine whether the nation can restore order after recent political chaos.
The nation of 32 million people has been hard hit by the coronavirus and the worst economic slump since the 1980s. It has also been in political disarray since November when congress ousted Martin Vizcarra, despite his high approval ratings at the time, and his successor only lasted five days.
“The bizarre spectacle of a president who was quite popular being forced out in what amounted to a rebellion in congress – for Wall Street and the international community it raises the question: Can anyone successfully govern Peru?” said Brian Winter, the editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly, before the vote.