Presidential elections in Peru: Fujimori's minimal advantage over Castillo

The presidential elections in Peru will keep the suspense until the last minute.

With 88.8% of the polls scrutinized, Keiko Fujimori, from Fuerza Popular leads with 50.5% of the votes over Pedro Castillo, from Peru Libre, who obtains 49.4%, according to the official count of the National Office of Electoral Processes ( Onpe).

The conservative candidate achieved a slight advantage in an exit poll (50.3% versus 49.7%), while the leftist Pedro Castillo narrowly won the quick count (50.2% versus 48.8%) published hours later. 

[Between a teacher and the daughter of a former president: Peru decides its next president in close elections]

The electoral body warned, with 40% of the ballots counted, that "the rural vote and the jungle vote", where Castillo is expected to have more force, would be the last to be incorporated into the official result.

The head of the Onpe, Piero Corvetto, remarked that the advance of the results of the presidential elections held this Sunday contains the data of the minutes of the voting tables closest to the 104 computer centers that the organization has in the country.

In that sense, Corvetto reiterated that the advance of the Onpe was about a "fundamentally urban" voting report, in which "a significant percentage of the records from the most remote places" had yet to be arrived and processed, including those of the rural areas, the jungle and Peruvians abroad.

Peruvian presidential candidate Pedro Castillo greets his supporters after voting in Tacabamba on June 6, 2021.

The country's prime minister, Violeta Bermúdez, asked citizens

to wait for the official results of the ballot before celebrating

the triumph of either of the two candidates. 

More than 25 million Peruvians were called this Sunday to vote to elect the new president of the country in a second electoral round between a left-wing teacher and the daughter of the imprisoned former president Alberto Fujimori.

Castillo, of the Peru Libre party, was the unexpected winner of the first round in April, in which votes were divided among 18 candidates.

The teacher, who likes to campaign with a palm hat and often carries a large pencil, the symbol of his party, 

obtained almost 19% of the votes, followed by Fujimori with 13.4%.

[Peru corrects its official death toll from coronavirus and becomes the worst country in the world]

Political rookie Pedro Castillo and Keiko Fujimori, in their third run for president, promised COVID-19 vaccines for all and other strategies to alleviate the health emergency that has killed more than 180,000 people in Peru and pushed millions to poverty.

The term of the presidency will be from July 28, 2021 to July 2026,

Keiko Fujimori, candidate for the presidency of Peru, greets her supporters after voting in Lima, on June 6, 2021.

The election comes shortly after the Peruvian government more than doubled the death toll from the coronavirus previously recognized by officials.

The pandemic has not only collapsed the medical and cemetery infrastructure in Peru,

left millions unemployed and highlighted long-standing inequalities in the country

, but has also deepened people's mistrust of the government, then of the knowledge of a secret vaccination campaign for the most politically connected people.

Amid protests and accusations of corruption, the South American country went through three presidents in November.

Now, analysts warn that this election could be another turning point for people's latent frustrations and generate more political instability.

Currently the president is Francisco Sagasti, and his term will end on July 28.

“I think that in both situations the risk of social unrest is high.

It's a

ticking

time bomb, ”

Claudia Navas, an analyst at global firm Control Risks, told The Associeted Press.

"I think that if Castillo wins, the people who support Fujimori or support the continuation of the economic model to some extent can protest."

But Navas said that "a more complex scenario will evolve if Fujimori wins because Castillo has been able to generate a discourse that has worked well in some rural communities regarding the social gap and saying that the political and economic elites have orchestrated things to stay in it. power and maintain social inequalities ”.

[The largest Mexican elections: how the midterm vote will be crucial for López Obrador]

Fujimori's supporters include the wealthiest players on the Peruvian national soccer team and the country's leading writer and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, Mario Vargas Llosa.

Vargas Llosa

, who lost a presidential election three decades ago against the candidate's father, Alberto Fujimori,

has gone from calling her "the dictator's daughter" in 2016 to considering her the bulwark of "freedom and progress" in the

face of "the threat communist ”from Castillo.

Keiko Fujimori was jailed as part of a corruption investigation, although she was released shortly after.

His father ruled between 1990 and 2000 and is serving a 25-year sentence for corruption and the killing of 25 people.

If he wins, she has promised to free her father.

Castillo, 51,

until recently was a primary school teacher in the country's third poorest district in the Andes

.

The son of illiterate parents, he entered politics after a teachers' strike.

Although he has moderated his speech regarding the nationalization of important sectors of the economy, he affirms that he will rewrite the Constitution that Alberto Fujimori bequeathed.

Castillo's supporters include former Bolivian President Evo Morales and former Uruguayan President José Mujica, who in a Facebook conversation told Castillo on Thursday

not

to

"fall into authoritarianism

.

"

[Harris travels to Mexico and Guatemala to forge agreements to curb the migratory exodus.

But his biggest challenge is corruption]

Peru is the second largest copper exporter in the world and mining accounts for almost 10% of its gross domestic product and 60% of its exports, so Castillo's initial proposal to nationalize the country's mining industry sounded alarms among business leaders.

But regardless of who ends up being chosen to succeed Sagasti on July 28,

investors will remain nervous

.

“Fujimori is a controversial figure who is being investigated for corruption.

Given the recent history of Peru, it is not difficult to imagine that this could lead to an impeachment process, ”

Nikhil Sanghani, an economic analyst at Capital Economics

, told

The Associated Press

.

With information from The Associated Press, Efe and El Comercio.