TWO EXTREMISTS VIE IN A RUN-OFF FOR PERU´S PRESIDENCY / THE ECONOMIST

Bello

Two extremists vie in a run-off for Peru’s presidency

Pedro Castillo, barely known until recently, faces the unpopular Keiko Fujimori

Cajamarca, in peru’s northern Andes, is known mainly as the place where Atahualpa, the last ruler of the Inca empire, was murdered by the Spanish conquistadors despite having paid his ransom by filling a room with gold. 

Today Cajamarca is the capital of a large region of struggling farmers, rough roads and modern gold mines. 

It still feels betrayed: the mines have brought more prosperity to the nation than to the region, which is Peru’s poorest. 

It is the home of Pedro Castillo, a rural schoolteacher and union leader who surprised the country by winning 19.1% of the vote in a presidential election on April 11th, ahead of 17 other candidates. 

He did so on a platform that calls for the nationalisation of foreign mining firms, a new constitution and a much bigger state.

These are the standard demands of the chavista left in Latin America. 

For the past 30 years Peru, with a fast-growing free-market economy that has slashed poverty, has rejected them. 

But political instability, corruption scandals and public disaffection have all mounted. 

The pandemic has overwhelmed an unequal health system. 

In a run-off election on June 6th that will pit Mr Castillo against Keiko Fujimori (13.4%), a conservative, might Peru break its political mould?

Until a month ago Mr Castillo was barely known, though he was a leader of a three-month-long teachers’ strike in 2017. 

A mestizo, like most Peruvians, he has a skilful populist touch. 

He excoriates a distant governing class “with their golden salaries”. 

“We cannot allow more poor people in a rich country,” he says, with a nod to those mines. 

He is a rondero—a member of the vigilante groups that patrol Cajamarca’s countryside, originally against rustlers, but which now act as a local power. 

He is also a Christian and a social conservative. 

Having recovered from covid-19 in January he was one of the few candidates to campaign in person, often on horseback and with a cowboy hat. The teachers’ union, ronderos and evangelicals spread his word.

In the past three elections up to a third of Peruvians, mainly in the Andes, have voted for candidates who promised to change “the model”. 

Only one went on to win a run-off: Ollanta Humala, a nationalist former army officer, lost in 2006 offering chavismo but won in 2011 on a more moderate, social-democratic platform. 

Mr Castillo could be another Mr Humala. 

As a typical Peruvian trade unionist he combines radical rhetoric with pragmatism. 

To win the teachers’ strike he allied with a movement descended from Shining Path, a terrorist group of the last century, but also with legislators from Ms Fujimori’s party.

However, Mr Castillo has a problem. 

Not only does he lack time to re-invent himself, but he stood for a Marxist-Leninist party controlled by Vladimir Cerrón, a former regional governor disqualified for corruption. 

Whereas Mr Castillo has been conciliatory in victory, his running-mate, Dina Boluarte, an ally of Mr Cerrón, threatened that “the comfortable middle class of Lima will certainly cease to be the comfortable middle class.”

Run-offs in Peru “tend to be a plebiscite on one of the two candidates”, says Alberto Vergara, a political scientist. 

“This will be a plebiscite on Castillo and he will probably lose.” 

Unless he moderates, he is likely to lose by a landslide. 

But he has one big thing going for him. 

Ms Fujimori is the most toxic political figure in Peru. 

Her father ruled as an autocrat in the 1990s. 

For the past decade anti-Fujimorismo has been the dominant political current. 

This twice denied Ms Fujimori the presidency. 

Her party won a majority in Congress in 2016, and repeatedly tried to bring down the government. 

She spent time in jail on unproven allegations of campaign-finance corruption which she claims are politically motivated. 

She is the candidate who has the highest rejection rate (though the proportion of people saying they would never vote for her is falling). 

Like Mr Castillo, she has a lot of work to do.

For many Peruvians, to have to choose between these two extremes is painful. Lots may abstain. 

The next president will be weak: the two contenders won less than a third of the vote combined; the total of blank and spoiled votes was more than Mr Castillo’s haul. 

The new Congress is likely to be split among 11 parties. 

Peruvian parties have become the property of individuals, often for financial gain. 

Their only shared interest is to raid the treasury and central-bank reserves for short-term popularity. 

That, rather than an ideological shift, is likely to be the biggest risk facing Peru.