The right-wing populist candidate, Keiko Fujimori, leads the way in the first official partial result of the presidential election, Sunday, June 6 in Peru with 52.9% of the vote, against 47.09% for his radical left rival, Pedro Castillo, announced the electoral body (ONPE). The count covers 42% of the 86,488 polling stations, detailed the head of the ONPE, Piero Corvetto.
Experts had predicted a close ballot. The two winners of the first round, on April 11, among 18 candidates, had assured earlier in the day that they would respect the verdict of the ballot box.
“We will be respectful” of the vote count, 51-year-old Castillo said during his vote wearing the white hat typical of his home region. “Whatever the result, I will respect the popular will”, added Mme Fujimori, 46, who voted in a district of the capital.
The daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), who is serving a 25-year prison sentence for corruption and crimes against humanity, climbs for the third time in the second round, after two successive defeats in 2011 and 2016. She did not recognize her defeat in the last presidential election won by the former president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, before recognizing a ” mistake “.
A divided country
Torn between two extremes in which they do not recognize themselves, voters were especially concerned by the alarming figures of the epidemic due to the coronavirus which has already killed more than 184,000, making the Andean country the fifth most bereaved in the world.
Even if the two frankly antagonistic candidates have called for unity, the post-campaign may be difficult as each camp has fueled fears and divided the country. The future president will have to take urgent measures to overcome the pandemic, the economic recession and the chronic institutional instability of the country whose GDP plunged by 11.12% in 2020. He will have to put up with a fragmented Parliament, born of the legislative in April, and customary alliances of circumstances that led to the dismissal of two presidents: Pedro Pablo Kuczynski in 2018 and his successor Martin Vizcarra in 2020.
The new president will take office on July 28, commemorating the bicentenary of Peru’s independence, and will replace interim president Francisco Sagasti, who urged his compatriots to “Scrupulously respect the will expressed in the ballot box”. If won, Keiko Fujimori would become the first female president of Peru and the first in America to follow a family dynasty.