After nearly two months of waiting, amid baseless claims of fraud and even rumblings of a military coup, Pedro Castillo will on Wednesday become Peru\u2019s president. The son of illiterate peasant farmers, Castillo\u2019s rise to the top on Peru\u2019s 200th anniversary of independence is hugely symbolic, but he will face huge challenges to unite the country.<\/p>\n
Castillo\u2019s razor-thin win has split the country between those who back his pledge to overhaul politics and the economic system to tackle poverty and inequality, and others who fear his presidency will upturn Peru\u2019s market-friendly economy and even threaten its democracy.<\/p>\n
Receiving his presidential credentials last week, Castillo called for unity, emphatically rejecting claims he would seek to imitate \u201cmodels from other countries\u201d. \u201cWe are not Chavistas\u201d, he said. \u201cWe are not communists, we are not extremists, much less are we terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n
But while Castillo, the maverick candidate of Marxist-Leninist party Per\u00fa Libre, has moderated his radical message \u2013 ruling out nationalising mines and calling for the longstanding central bank chief, Julio Velarde, to stay on \u2013 the outright or tacit refusal of far-right opponents to accept his legitimacy will undermine his ability to govern.<\/p>\n
Last week, Castillo\u2019s opponent, Keiko Fujimori, recognised the electoral tribunal\u2019s decision declaring him the winner as \u201cwhat the law and the constitution\u201d demanded but, in the same breath, added that the \u201ctruth would come out\u201d and pledged to lead \u201cthe great challenge of stopping communism in Peru\u201d.<\/p>\n
While fraud claims have been discredited, Castillo beat his far-right opponent by only the narrowest of margins \u2013 just 44,263 out of 18.8m votes cast \u2013 or 50.126% of the vote over his rival\u2019s 49.874%. Analysts say the slim victory will leave the leftist outsider \u2013 who has never before held public office \u2013 with little room to manoeuvre.<\/p>\n
The insistence of Fujimori \u2013 the daughter of the jailed 1990s autocrat Alberto Fujimori \u2013 on baseless fraud claims has drawn comparisons with former US president Donald Trump\u2019s refusal to accept his defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut Keiko Fujimori and her supporters are not simply copying the Trump playbook,\u201d wrote Jo-Marie Burt, a professor at George Mason University in Virginia and an expert on Peru\u2019s recent history. \u201cKeiko is drawing on and deploying the lessons she learned at the feet of her father, Alberto Fujimori, Peru\u2019s last dictator.\u201d Alberto Fujimori\u2019s 10 years in power imploded amid corruption revelations and electoral fraud in 2000. He was later jailed in 2009 for 25 years for corruption and death squad killings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a lot of fear and polarisation,\u201d Eduardo Dargent, a political science professor at Lima\u2019s Pontifical Catholic University, told the Guardian. \u201cThere is a very strong rightwing movement \u2013 not as numerous as they think \u2013 but powerful, and it has been tolerated and sometimes supported by the media.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are looking at a right[-wing movement] which looks very much like Donald Trump\u2019s right, Hungary and Poland\u2019s right, Brazil\u2019s Bolsonaro\u2019s right,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
It is the third consecutive and narrow defeat for Fujimori in presidential runoffs. She lost in 2011 and 2016, the latter provoking a revanchist attack on the government, as Fujimori used her party\u2019s majority in congress to obstruct legislation, impeach ministers and even force a president from office.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last five years in Peru has been hell in political terms,\u201d said Dargent, predicting a continuation of the \u201cconstitutional hardball\u201d practices and erosion of democratic norms and institutions which has seen the country churn through four presidents and two congresses in five years.<\/p>\n
Crucially, Castillo is completely new to Lima\u2019s corridors of power, not belonging to any of the traditional political, military or business elite channels to the presidency but rather coming to prominence as the leader of a nationwide teacher\u2019s strike in 2017. His party has 37 out of 130 seats in congress so he will need to seek alliances to survive.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not a Lula or even an Evo Morales \u2026 who both came with a lot of experience with hardball politics,\u201d said Dargent, referring to Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva who swept to power in Brazil in 2002 as an established political figure and trade unionist, and the former Bolivian president of nearly 14 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a huge challenge for someone who is not used to these kind of political and geopolitical challenges, because this now transcends Peru,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
While many Peruvians identify with Castillo, who wears the typical wide-brimmed straw hat of his home region Cajamarca, many also chime with his social conservatism. His views opposing abortion and LGBTQ+ rights differ little from those of his far-right opponents. \u201cAbsolutely not,\u201d he told a journalist when asked whether he would legalise abortion in an interview on national television. When asked the same question about gay marriage, he responded: \u201cEven worse. Family first.\u201d<\/p>\n
Javier Torres, director of the regional news service Noticias Ser, says Castillo\u2019s election is the result of a \u201cpolitical crisis deepened by the pandemic\u201d. Peru has the highest Covid-19 death rate per capita and the economic fallout has forced millions back into poverty.<\/p>\n
He said expectations from Castillo\u2019s voters would be high. \u201cLet\u2019s see what capacity Castillo has to redistribute [wealth] better,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we\u2019re in a crisis, and that redistribution could generate even more conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After nearly two months of waiting, amid baseless claims of fraud and even rumblings of a military coup, Pedro Castillo will on Wednesday become Peru\u2019s president. The son of illiterate peasant farmers, Castillo\u2019s rise to the top on Peru\u2019s 200th anniversary of independence is hugely symbolic, but he will face huge challenges to unite the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206193,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-206186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n