Peru’s Presidential Election and the Approaching Run-Off
Results now being assessed from the first round of Peru’s presidential election are expected to deliver a strikingly different outcome than what was widely predicted merely months ago. Former lieutenant colonel and quirky leftist candidate Ollanta Humala led the race with 31.37 percent of the popular vote. Keiko Fujimori, daughter of now jailed Peruvian autocrat Alberto Fujimori, trailed Humala with 23.22 percent of ballots cast. The other three top candidates—former president Alejandro Toledo, former IMF economist Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (PPK), and former Lima mayor Luis Castañeda—were all favored by the country’s center-right elites when it came to their political leanings. Many in the media have suggested that the three trailing candidates were too ideologically indistinct, fragmenting the aristocratic vote. This left Humala and Fujimori to compete for the remaining segments of Peruvian society, to whom they offered differing varieties of populist appeal. For many, this is an unfortunate outcome that could supplant reasoned political debate in the run-off on June 5 with emotionally-based responses to the two remaining candidates.
This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Associate Adrian Carroll
Blog de Octavio Islas 