Peru: How will the people defend Pedro Castillo’s victory?

Peru Libre’s leftist candidate, Pedro Castillo, finally won the second round of the presidential elections in Peru, defeating his contender, Keiko Fujimori, of the right-wing Fuerza Popular. The victory could mean a turn in Peruvian politics, a country in which its citizens aspire to a progressive government that should leave behind and disassociate itself from the entrenched neoliberalism that has only left corruption, impunity and instability.Ac

cording to the final count of the results of the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE), with 100% of the tally sheets counted, Castillo obtained 50.125% of the votes, compared to the 49.875% obtained by Fujimori. The support of rural areas ended up being decisive in giving victory to the teacher, trade unionist and member of Peru Libre, who counted 8,835,079 votes, 44,058 more than his rival.

At 8:43 p.m. (local) on Monday, June 14, only 13 tally sheets remained to be processed. Of this number, eight had contested votes; two were not readable; and the other three contained «more than one type of observation», reports a dispatch from RT.

The Special Electoral Jury (JEE) is in charge of reviewing the tally sheets  with observations and, later, of deciding whether to annul or count them. In the event of an appeal, the plenary session of the National Electoral Jury (JNE) would be in charge of issuing a final resolution.

After concluding the counting of the voting records, the Special Electoral Juries will have to resolve the approximately 270 requests for annulment of the political forces that entered within the established period. Once this procedure is completed, the official results of the second round will be announced.

From the Peru Libre Twitter account they celebrated the results that give Castillo the victory. In contrast, Fujimori’s supporters are outside the headquarters of the National Elections Jury in Lima to protest the alleged irregularities detected during the elections.

The uncertainty that Peru has experienced

Shortly before the end of the processing of the tally sheets, Fujimori announced on Thursday, June 10, that her team would request annulment actions at 802 polling stations nationwide, representing nearly 200,000 votes, for alleged irregularities detected. In addition, she expressed that they would be attentive to 1,200 tally sheets with observations, so that «they are counted in the final count of the National Elections Jury».

The denunciations of irregularities made by Fuerza Popular fueled the state of uncertainty after the elections, despite the fact that the authorities called on Fujimori and Castillo to ask their supporters to calm down until the conclusion of the vote counting process and the review of the tally sheets.

After the election on Sunday, June 6, in which more than 18.8 million voters participated, exit polls estimated a tight closure, which favored the right-wing candidate by a slight margin.

With the advance of the official count this Monday, Fujimori had an advantage due, in large part, to the support received in the department of Lima, where the Fuerza Popular candidate obtained 4,008,541 votes, representing 64.62% of the total of votes. On the other hand, Castillo only had 2,194,030 votes in the capital, equivalent to 35.37%.

However, as the votes from rural and remote areas of Peru were counted, the result of the elections changed and favored Castillo. In the departments of Cusco and Huancavelica, Castillo had an advantage of more than 65 percentage points.

In Amazonas, Pasco and Huanuco, the Peru Libre candidate outperformed his opponent from Fuerza Popular by more than thirty percentage points. In Cajamarca, with 99.94% of the tally sheets counted, the difference was 42 points in favor of the teacher.

Polarization

Peru’s ballot faced two candidates with completely opposite political projects. Castillo, a teacher and protagonist of the strikes that paralyzed the education sector in 2017 demanding better salaries for teachers, proposes a «socialist State» and an «interventor» (State), to give rise to a «popular economy with markets».

On the other hand, the daughter of the imprisoned former president Alberto Fujimori is a staunch defender of economic liberalism, who proposed in her ‘National Rescue and Reconstruction Plan’ to «redesign the regulations and public policies that allow the promotion of private investment, the promotion of the generation of decent jobs, the improvement of the efficiency of public spending and the formal development of enterprises” in the country.

The elections were held amid intense political polarization, after a turbulent four-year period, which was marked by the resignation of President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, the removal of his successor, Martín Vizcarra, the brief presidential term of Manuel Merino – who left office pressured by popular protests – and the current management of Francisco Sagasti, who must hand over the presidency to Castillo.

This electoral process in Peru was atypical. In addition to an «electrifying» second electoral round (with late official results), the proclamation of the new president generates a lot of concern about what will happen and how the majority of Peruvians will have to continue to defend their will so as to change the existing political model.