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Ballot in Peru: an exit point gives a technical tie between Keiko Fujimori and Pedro Castillo with a minimal advantage for the right-wing candidate

2021-06-08T02:14:51.039Z


It's from the Ipsos company. The left teacher has a 50.3 and the daughter of the former president reaches 49.7 percent.


06/06/2021 21:01

  • Clarín.com

  • World

Updated 06/06/2021 21:14

According to an exit poll by the Ipsos company, left-wing candidate Pedro Castillo and right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori are tied,

but with a slight advantage for the right-wing candidate.

With messages of unity, Fujimori and Castillo

promised that they will respect whatever the outcome

this Sunday of one of the closest presidential elections in the history of Peru, in a country devastated by the pandemic and a fierce political crisis.

With antagonistic projects

, the rural school teacher and the daughter of the imprisoned former president Alberto Fujimori arrive tied in the polls for this ballot, after a campaign marked by uncertainty and the exacerbation of fears, which raised the price of the dollar on Friday to a record of 3.9 soles.

Castillo

led a family breakfast

in

the morning

in the roofed interior courtyard of his house in the Chugur hamlet, in the northern Cajamarca region, and went to vote at noon in the nearby town of Tacabamba, followed through the streets by hundreds of locals.

Keiko Fujimori arriving at her polling place.

AFP photo

"I have made a decision, I will not be in Lima

for the health of my parents,

" announced the candidate after voting at the Simón Herrera school, canceling his plan to travel to the capital to wait for the results.

"

We are going to be respectful

as soon as there is an official report" of the vote count, the 51-year-old candidate also indicated, dressed in a brown jacket and white high-top hat, typical of the peasants of Cajamarca.

His rival, who participated in a family breakfast on the slopes of a hill in a poor neighborhood in the Lima district of San Juan de Lurigancho,

also indicated that he will recognize the results of the ballot

, something he did not do in 2016, when he lost to banker Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.

"From now on I can say that whatever the result, I will respect the popular will as it should be,"

promised the 46-year-old candidate,

who is playing for the third time the possibility of becoming the first president of Peru.

Fujimori, who voted in the afternoon in the Surco district of Lima,

congratulated "the grandparents and grandmothers

" for having gone to vote.

"They do it with their children and their grandchildren in mind," he said.

What's coming

Whoever wins, Peru

will continue to maintain a conservative profile

with the rejection of both to legislate on abortion, homosexual marriage and gender identity.

Both candidates spent the last hours with their families,

after closing their campaigns on Thursday in Lima in rallies

with hundreds of followers crowded together, while the pandemic did not give truce.

Peru this week had the highest mortality rate in the world due to covid-19, after adjusting the figures, and accumulates almost two million infections and more than 180,000 deaths.

Pedro Castillo (c), speaking during the traditional electoral breakfast, in the city of Cajamarca, Peru.

Photo Xinhua

Castillo

concentrates support in the rural areas

of "deep Peru", such as his native Cajamarca, but there are Peruvians fearful that the country will become a new Venezuela who will vote for Fujimori as "the lesser evil."

"I don't even want to vote,

for me they both don't deserve the vote,

but I am panicking Castillo, so I vote for Keiko," said 51-year-old Johnny Samaniego, from Lima.

Anyone who wins will face a huge challenge,

as they will have to take urgent measures to overcome the pandemic

, economic recession and political instability, dealing with a fragmented Congress, corruption and poor public management.

If Fujimori wins, "it is not an easy task,

given the mistrust that his name

and that of his family generate in wide sectors. He must quickly calm the markets and generate measures that allow reactivation," political scientist Jessica Smith told AFP.

And if Castillo wins, he must

"show independent leadership"

from his party leaders and "consolidate a parliamentary majority that will allow him to carry out his ambitious program," he added.

Meanwhile, analyst Luis Pásara told AFP that

"it will take time to calm the waters

, because polarization is fierce and there is an environment of social conflict."

Some 160,000 soldiers and policemen were deployed to guarantee the security of the electoral process.

Peru has seen four presidents pass since 2018

, three in just five days in November 2020.

On this day,

a million Peruvians residing in 75 countries

also

voted

, including 140,000 in Venezuela, Chile, Paraguay and Aruba who could not do so in the first round due to restrictions due to the pandemic.

The new president will take office on July 28

, the day that Peru commemorates the bicentennial of its independence, replacing the centrist interim president Francisco Sagasti, who urged his compatriots "to scrupulously respect the will expressed at the polls."

Source: AFP and AP

PB

Look also

Who is Pedro Castillo, the teacher who can lead the left to power in Peru

Who is Keiko Fujimori, the right-wing leader seeking to be the first president of Peru

Source: clarin

All news articles on 2021-06-08

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