Peru elections: Castillo and Fujimori close most polarized electoral campaign ever

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – With promises to change the system or “save” the country from “communism”, in addition to defeating the Covid-19 pandemic, candidates Pedro Castillo and Keiko Fujimori have closed their campaigns for the second round of the presidential elections to be held this Sunday in Peru.

Far-left Castillo and authoritarian right Fujimori held massive demonstrations on Thursday in the central Plaza Dos de Mayo and the Villa El Salvador neighborhood, respectively, even though the government and the municipality of Lima reminded them of the sanitary emergency the country is facing.

Without the authorities intervening to prevent it, these gatherings culminated in one of the most polarized campaigns of the last decades in a country confronted between proposals for economic and political change or the defense of the neoliberal “model” prevailing in Peru three decades.

After Sunday’s elections, which all forecasts indicate will be extremely close, with tallies changing “vote by vote”, the leader who will occupy the presidential palace will be inaugurated on July 28, the bicentenary of Peruvian independence.

CASTILLO CALLS FOR CHANGE

During a massive closing rally, and enveloped by the clamor of his supporters, Castillo assured that in Peru, “the time has come not to look at ideologies, nor the color of the skin” to “clarify the clamor of the people” for a government that recovers “the wealth of having an industrialized and prosperous country”.

The candidate of the far-left Peru Libre party addressed his supporters from the balcony of the headquarters of the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP), the country’s largest trade union federation, to tell them that he expects “The clamor of the people in a few hours.

Read also:Peru elections – Pedro Castillo, the conservative rural teacher calling for radical change

He assured that if he won the elections, it would be “a government of the people to defend the people” and reiterated proposals such as “recovering” the natural gas from the Camisea field and “convening a National Constituent Assembly” to change the 1993 Constitution promulgated under the government of Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), Keiko’s father.

Castillo, however, stressed that he would respect the current Constitution “until the people decide” and asked for “tranquility” to the Peruvian people and businessmen after rejecting accusations that they claim to be “communist” or “Chavista” and want to “steal” private property.

He also reiterated his commitment to ensuring that all Peruvians over 18 are vaccinated against Covid-19 by December 31 and to work to reactivate the national economy, hard hit by the pandemic.

FUJIMORI FIGHTS AGAINST “COMMUNISM”

In Villa El Salvador, south of the Peruvian capital, Keiko Fujimori organized another massive rally. She called on her compatriots to support her candidacy to “save Peru from communism”.

Accompanied by personalities such as Álvaro Vargas Llosa, son of Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa, who until a few weeks ago was her most bitter enemy, the candidate of the right-wing Fuerza Popular endorsed the idea that she has brandished throughout the campaign: the vote is not for her, but for the “future” of the country.

Read also: Peru elections – Keiko Fujimori, in spite of everything, is the model for saving the “model”

Fujimori also ratified several of her campaign proposals, aimed at Peru “making a change, but not backward, but forwards” and affirmed that she would promote the control of Covid-19, build new medical posts and hospitals, open a hundred oxygen factories and launch a massive vaccination campaign.

She also reiterated that she will promote the opening of small businesses with exemptions from tax and operating licenses, seeking to build “formality,” and that the Peruvian treasury will stop “abusively” persecuting businessmen.

The candidate, who denies that her many spending proposals are populist and assures that they are well-financed, referred to the provision of some $2.5 million soles in credits for small businesses and insisted on the delivery of a $2,500 soles reward to each of the more than 185,000 families of fatal victims of Covid in the country.

With these massive rallies, in which the minimum standards of health security in the face of the pandemic have not been met, the two candidates have closed their campaigns, in which more than 25.2 million Peruvians can participate to elect their president for the five-year 2021 – 2026 term.