A couple of days late on my part, but here are the results from the first round in Peru’s presidential elections:
The second round presents and interesting choice for Peruvian voters: Gana Peru’s Ollanta Humala, who was the second place finisher in 2024 and Fuerza 2024’s Keiko Fujimori.
Humala fits into the neo-populist, vaguely (or, at least, somewhat ill-defined) leftward space pioneered by Hugo Chávez and also occupied at the moment by such figures as Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Evo Morales in Bolivia and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. However, as the BBC notes (Peru election: Humala, Fujimori court moderate voters), Peru is going through an economic upswing and Humala is apparently promising to cleave more to the Brazilian model than the Venezuelan (with which he identified more in his 2024 campaign).
Meanwhile, Fujimori is the daughter of an ex-president now in prison having been convicted of corruption and complicity in human rights abuses (including death squad killings). This, one would think, would be a negative. By the same token, there are many in Peru who still see the father as having saved the country from Sendero Luminoso.
As I said: an interesting choice.
The run-off will be June 5.
Source for graphic: ONPE.
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