Pedro Castillo and Keiko Fujimori lead the way in Peru's run-off vote

The general elections in Peru were held on 11 April to elect the president of the Republic, two vice-presidents and 130 congressmen for a legislature that will last from 2021 to 2025. The results presented by the National Office of Electoral Processes showed how the Peruvian Congress will be composed, and who will be the candidates who will go on to the second round. With 95% of the votes counted, the candidates who obtained the best results were Pedro Castillo with 19.11% of the votes, followed by Keiko Fujimori with 13.32% of the votes, and in third place, Rafael López obtained 11.6% of the votes, tied with Hernando de Soto Polar. It should be remembered that 18 candidates ran, and only the two best results would go through to the second round, to be held on 6 June this year. 

The count carried out by the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE) has not yet declared an official winner, as they are waiting for 100% of the votes to be counted, but the trend is irreversible and we can conclude that Pedro Castillo will go on to the second round of these presidential elections. The uncertainty is about who will accompany Castillo in the second round, as at the moment it seems that it will be Keiko Fujimori, but this cannot be confirmed as she is only 300,000 votes ahead of Rafael Bernardo López and Hernando De Soto Polar, but this trend could change with the votes that have not yet been counted. According to the results, the new Congress will be a very fragmented body, with 11 parties, where there will be many political forces, which will have a new modality, the pacts. In the results of the legislative elections, the party "Peru Libre", the electoral platform of Pedro Castillo, will be the political force with the most seats in Congress. They did not achieve a simple majority, which means that they will have to make pacts with other parties in order to pass several pieces of legislation and their main campaign proposal, which is the drafting of a new constitution. The second party with the highest number of seats is "Fuerza Popular", the party of Keiko Fujimori, who, if she manages to unite with all the political forces of the right, thus gaining control of the legislative chamber, would become the first opposition force against a supposed government of Pedro Castillo. 
 

Candidate Castillo addressed his voters when the trend was irreversible, "today the Peruvian people have just had the blindfold removed from their eyes. We have been told that political scientists, constitutionalists and scholars can lead a country; they have had enough time, tremendous space, decades, lustrums, and look how they leave the country". Castillo wants to break with Peru's traditional policies; in recent years the South American country has been governed by the centre-right. Castillo's government programme includes proposals such as raising taxes on all companies, making the state prevent the monopolisation of private companies, creating a social state, updating strategic sectors, and paying off the national internal debt. Keiko Fujimori, through a video she posted on her social networks, called for "calm and prudence" to wait for the official results. "We trust in your commitment and hard work..... it is not time to celebrate, but to take care of ourselves and our families. Please wait calmly and do not expose yourselves because the virus is attacking us in a very violent way," Fujimori said in the video. 

The dispute for second place, to find out who will face Castillo in June, has Fujimori and Hernando de Soto in a small alliance, as both candidates would need the voters of these political forces. Fujimori sent this message to Hernando de Soto: "I want to send my greetings to Mr. Hernando de Soto. We have seen this first result, there would be a technical tie and we have to wait prudently for the quick count and the ONPE's own official count, but I believe that beyond the differences, there are also great coincidences: the defence of the Constitution and our thoughts on the model of country we want to have"; the Fuerza Popular candidate is seeking the support of her voters for the possible second round. 

Latin America Coordinator: José Antonio Sierra.