With
his wide-brimmed peasant hat and oversized teacher’s pencil
held high, Peru’s Pedro Castillo has been traveling the country
exhorting voters to get behind a call that has been particularly
urgent during this devastating pandemic: “No más pobres
en un país rico” – No more poor people in a rich
country. In a cliffhanger of an election with a huge urban-rural and
class divide, it appears that the rural teacher, farmer and union
leader is about to make history by defeating–by less than one
percent–powerful far-right candidate Keiko Fujimori, scion of
the country’s political “Fujimori dynasty.”
Fujimori
is challenging the election’s results, alleging widespread
fraud. Her campaign has only presented evidence of isolated
irregularities, and so far there is nothing to suggest a tainted
vote. However, she can challenge some of the votes to delay the final
results, and much like in the U.S., even an allegation of fraud by
the losing candidate will cause uncertainty and raise tensions in the
country.
Castillo’s
victory will be remarkable not only because he is a leftist teacher
who is the son of illiterate peasants and his campaign was grossly
outspent by Fujimori, but there was a relentless propaganda attack
against him that touched on historical fears of Peru’s middle
class and elites. It was similar to
what happened recently to progressive candidate Andrés Arauz
who narrowly lost Ecuador’s elections, but even more intense.
Grupo El Comercio, a media conglomerate that controls
80% of Peru’s newspapers,
led the charge against Castillo. They accused him of being a
terrorist with links to the Shining Path, a guerrilla group whose
conflict with the state between 1980 and 2002 led to tens of
thousands of deaths and left the population traumatized. Castillo’s
link to the Shining Path link is flimsy: While a leader with Sutep,
an education worker’s union, Castillo is said to have been
friendly with Movadef, the Movement for Amnesty and Fundamental
Rights, a group alleged to have been the political wing of the
Shining Path. In reality, Castillo himself was
a rondero when
the insurgency was most active. Ronderos were peasant self-defense
groups that protected their communities from the guerrillas and
continue to provide security against crime and violence.
Two
weeks before the elections, on May 23, 18 people were massacred in
the rural Peruvian town of San Miguel del Ene. The government
immediately attributed the
attack to the remnants of the Shining Path involved in drug
trafficking, although no group has taken responsibility yet. The
media linked the attack to Castillo and his campaign, whipping up
fear of more violence should he win the presidency. Castillo
denounced the attack and reminded Peruvians that similar massacres
had occurred in the run-up to the 2011
and 2016 elections.
For her part, Fujimori suggested Castillo
was linked to the killing.
On
the economic front, Castillo has been accused of being a communist
who wants to nationalize key industries, and would turn Peru into a
“cruel
dictatorship”
like Venezuela. Billboards along Lima’s main highway asked the
population: “Would you like to live in Cuba or Venezuela?”
referring to a Castillo win. As seen in the photos above, newspapers
linked Castillo’s campaign to the devaluation of the Peruvian
currency and warned that a Castillo victory would hurt low-income
Peruvians the most because businesses would shutter or move overseas.
Time and time again, the Castillo campaign has clarified that
he is not a communist and that his aim is not to nationalize
industries but to renegotiate contracts with multinationals so that
more of the profits stay with the local communities.
Meanwhile,
Fujimori was treated with kid gloves by the media during the
campaign, with one of the newspapers in the above pictures claiming
that “Keiko guarantees work, food, health and an immediate
reactivation of the economy.” Her past as a first lady during
her father Alberto Fujimori’s brutal rule is largely ignored by
corporate media. She is able to claim that “fujimorismo
defeated terrorism” without being challenged on the horrors
that fujimorismo inflicted on the country, including the forced
sterilization of over 270,000
women and 22,000 men for
which her father is on trial. He is currently in jail over other
human rights abuses and corruption, though Keiko promised to free him
if she won. Also ignored was the fact that Keiko herself is out on
bail as of last year, pending a money-laundering
investigation,
and without presidential immunity, she will probably end up in
prison.
The
international media was no different in its unbalanced coverage of
Castillo and Fujimori, with Bloomberg warning that “elites
tremble” at the thought of Castillo as president and The
Financial Times headline screaming
“Peru’s elite in panic at prospect of hard-left victory
in presidential election.”
Peru’s
economy has grown impressively over the past 20 years, but that
growth did not raise all boats. Millions of Peruvians in the
countryside have been left abandoned by the state. On top of that,
like many of its neighbors (including Colombia, Chile and Ecuador),
Peru has underinvested in health care, education and other social
programs. Such choices so decimated the health care system that Peru
now has the shameful distinction of leading the entire world in per
capita Covid-19 deaths.
In
addition to the public health disaster, Peruvians have been living
through political turmoil marked by an extraordinary number of
high-profile cases of corruption and four presidents in three years.
Five of its last seven presidents faced corruption accusations. In
2020, President Martín Vizcarra (himself accused of
corruption) was impeached, unseated and replaced by Manuel Merino.
The maneuver was denounced as a parliamentary coup, leading to
several days of massive street protests. Just five days into his
tenure, Merino resigned and was replaced by current President
Francisco Sagasti.
One
of Castillo’s key campaign platforms is to convoke a
constitutional referendum to let the people decide whether they want
a new constitution or wish to keep the current one written in 1993
under the regime of Alberto Fujimori, which entrenched neoliberalism
into its framework.
“The
current constitution prioritizes private interests over public
interests, profit over life and dignity,” reads his plan
of government.
Castillo proposes that a new constitution include the following:
recognition and guarantees for the rights to health, education, food,
housing and internet access; recognition for indigenous peoples and
Peru’s cultural diversity; recognition of the rights of nature;
redesign of the State to focus on transparency and citizens’
participation; and a key role for the state in strategic planning to
ensure that the public interest takes precedence.
On
the foreign policy front, Castillo’s victory will represent a
huge blow to U.S. interests in the region and an important step
towards reactivating Latin American integration. He has promised to
withdraw Peru from the Lima Group, an ad hoc committee of countries
dedicated to regime change in Venezuela.
In
addition, the Peru Libre party has called
for expelling
USAID and for the closure of U.S. military bases in the country.
Castillo has also expressed support for countering the OAS
and strengthening
both the
Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the
Union of South American Nations (UNASUR). The victory is also a good
omen for the left in Chile, Colombia and Brazil, each of which will
have presidential elections over the next year and a half.
Castillo
will face a daunting task, with a hostile congress, a hostile
business class, a hostile press and most likely, a hostile Biden
administration. The support of millions of angry and mobilized
Peruvians demanding change, along with international solidarity, will
be key to fulfilling his campaign promise of addressing the needs of
the most poor and abandoned sectors of Peruvian society.
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