Peru looks to the future through the rearview mirror: a choice for the return to two opposite pasts

BarcelonaIn an election, what is usual is that parties look towards the future. It is also not strange to look at the present if what is sought is to renew the presidency or a majority in Parliament. In certain contexts, some formations, for the future, seek to evoke the past. What is less common is that citizens arrive at the polling station and find that the two options they have to vote for evoke different pasts in their country's history, however different they may be. This is the scenario that Peru finds itself in this Sunday, as it celebrates the second round of the presidential elections.

who led Peru between 1990 and 2000who led Peru between 1990 and 2000in 2022 he himself dissolved the Parliament and established a state of exceptionIt is the fourth time that Keiko Fujimori is running in the elections. This time Roberto Sánchez is her rival. He also evokes the figure of a former president, in this case Pedro Castillo, of an opposing political sign, who governed the country between July 2021 – after Keiko Fujimori won the vote – and December 2022. He currently claims to be the "kidnapped president" of Peru, after in 2022 he himself dissolved Parliament and established a state of exception to break the blockade imposed by the legislature on any measure he intended to promote. At the time of the self-coup, the de facto powers did not side with him and he ended up imprisoned. The left considers that Castillo, who has become a symbol for the most impoverished sectors of the country, especially for the indigenous peoples, was expelled from power by the elites that Fujimori currently represents, the face of extreme neoliberalism and authoritarian right-wing in Peru.

"We can say that Sánchez's party is left-wing because it has a discourse of social justice and inclusion of marginalized sectors, but it is not at all ideologized," portrays Ana Ayuso, senior researcher for Latin America at Cidob. "In fact, there are even those who question whether it is a left-wing party," adds Martí. Rodrigo Gil, political scientist at the Institute of Peruvian Studies, defines Sánchez's party as "a left-wing party that poses a frontal criticism of the capital's centralism." "It is based on Castillo's personalism. Sánchez even emulates him physically, using a hat like the one the former president used," details Gil. In fact, the link between the candidate and the former president is so close that Sánchez has announced that he will spend election night visiting the prison where Castillo is imprisoned.

A disillusioned population

The duel between conservative circles and the resistance and electoral revolt of the impoverished and forgotten sectors would awaken passions in practically any context. But despite the confrontation and polarization between two opposing political camps, the electoral campaign has not yielded major headlines. "The candidates have not mobilized great illusions, fears or expectations, which reflects the country's mood in recent years," illustrates Gil.

Peru has had ten presidents in eight years, and this instability has caused a large part of the population to disconnect from politics. Furthermore, despite macroeconomic data remaining stable, the majority of citizens do not see an improvement in their material conditions in a country where 70% of the population lives off informal work. Concern about insecurity caused by criminal organizations, often related to drug trafficking, has been one of the major issues that have loomed over the campaign, but the issue has occupied the country's political agenda for some time now and proposals to address it are alternating – with more or less success in their implementation – depending on who holds the presidency and controls Congress, where Fujimorism carries significant weight.

Most polls point to a slight advantage for the right-wing candidate, which has been increasing as the weeks have passed. But forecasts in the country have a rather wide margin of error. At this point, all experts consulted agree in assuring that it is difficult to predict who will win the elections. The global reactionary wave may benefit Fujimori, but Sánchez has moderated her discourse in recent days and has presented a new government plan, different from the one she had put on the table at the beginning of the campaign, with which she tries to convince the anti-Fujimori voter that with a proposal like the previous one, much more focused on strengthening the role of the state, perhaps they would not vote for her. It will be this electorate, mainly made up of what is known as the middle class, that will tip the scales.