Peruvians are called to the polls on Sunday to choose from eighteen candidates their future president who will have to resolve both the health emergency linked to a rebounding pandemic, chronic institutional instability and the economic recession.
The poll, which promises to be very indecisive, has been maintained despite the virulent second wave of Covid-19 which hits Latin America, with records of contaminations and deaths which do not spare Peru.
In a country where the charisma of the candidate prevails over ideological positions, 10 of the 18 postulants are oriented to the right or to the center-right of the political spectrum, four to the left, one to the center and three are nationalists.
According to the latest opinion polls, none of them would collect more than 10% of the votes in the first round, which makes it “the most open election in history” according to the director of the polling institute Ipsos , Alfredo Torres.
Some 28% of those polled said they did not know who would have their favor in the secrecy of the voting booth.
Former center-right MP Yonhy Lescano, left-wing anthropologist Veronika Mendoza and liberal economist Hernando de Soto form the top three in the latest Ipsos poll published on Sunday, before the ban on opinion polls n ‘enters into force.
But ex-footballer George Forsyth (center-right), businessman Rafael Lopez Aliaga (far-right), teacher Pedro Castillo (left) or Keiko Fujimori (populist right), are potentially in a position of qualify for the second round on June 6.
Interim President Francisco Sagasti (center), elected by Parliament after the impeachment in November 2020 of ex-President Martin Vizcarra, is not running for re-election.
Mr. Vizcarra, whose dismissal by an omnipotent Parliament had provoked violent demonstrations, is seeking to be elected as a member of this unicameral assembly which will be entirely renewed on Sunday.
Instability
Peruvians have shown little interest in this campaign, worn down by the repeated institutional crises which, in the most recent one, led the country to have three presidents in one week.
Dismissed by Parliament for “moral incapacity” on the basis of an accusation of alleged bribes, popular President Martin Vizcarra was replaced by MP Manuel Merino, President of Parliament.
Forced five days later to resign under pressure from the street and released by the political class for its repression of demonstrations, the latter was then replaced by the conciliator Francisco Sagasti.
Mr. Vizcarra himself replaced in 2018 his predecessor Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, elected two years previously, resigned on the eve of a probable parliamentary vote to remove him.
Despite the rapid rise in contaminations and deaths, the candidates held electoral meetings denounced as “high risk of transmission” by the head of the public health commission of the Order of Physicians, Augusto Tarazona.
Three of the 18 candidates also contracted Covid-19 during the campaign.
In this country of 33 million inhabitants where more than 1.5 million positive cases and 53,000 deaths have been recorded, the question of the postponement of the vote, which is mandatory, has not been discussed. In neighboring Chile, the election scheduled for Sunday for a Constituent Assembly has been postponed for five weeks.
Peru, which has slowly started its vaccination campaign, impatiently awaits the return of the four million tourists a year attracted by its priceless archaeological heritage.
After years of above-average growth in Latin America, the Peruvian economy contracted by 11.12% in 2020, the worst figure in three decades.
Four million Peruvians have lost their jobs due to the pandemic and five million have become poor. Today, a third of the inhabitants live in poverty, according to official statistics.
In the third country of South America by area (1.28 million km2), the 25 million voters called to the polls will vote from the villages of the Amazon jungle to the Andean highlands via the shores of the Pacific.
The first partial results of the presidential election should be known around midnight (05:00 GMT Monday). The official results of the legislative elections will take several days. A second round is scheduled for June 6.