Peru's Election Runoff Offers Voters A Bad Choice

Peru’s Election Runoff Offers Voters a Choice Between a Rock and a Hard Place PERU Peru Peru’s June 7 presidential runoff has become a race pitting one candidate under legal threat and another shadowed by an authoritarian family legacy. Voters are deeply wary of both. Left-wing congressman Roberto Sánchez was confirmed for the runoff vote even as prosecutors were already seeking to disqualify him from the race and imprison him for campaign finance irregularities. His opponent, conservative Keiko Fujimori, is making her fourth presidential run on a law-and-order platform while trying to escape the shadow of Fujimorismo, the movement built around the authoritarian rule of her father Alberto Fujimori in the 1990s. The case against Sánchez has increased turmoil in a race already testing Peru’s fragile democracy. But his legal troubles are only part of the problem. Neither candidate came close to winning broad support in the tumultuous first round, when more than 70 percent of voters chose someone else. Peru’s first round was marred by logistical failures, delayed results and allegations of fraud. “Both candidates face strong rejection from parts of the population,” Le Monde wrote. “Sánchez will likely be portrayed, as (former President Pedro) Castillo was, as a ‘communist’ hostile to investors. Fujimori, on the other hand, reassures the business community. But anti-Fujimorism remains even stronger, especially among those who suffered human rights abuses during her father’s presidency.” Fujimori won 17.19 percent of the vote, while Sánchez took 12.03 percent. Because voting is mandatory, both finalists must compete for supporters of defeated candidates and reluctant voters. A recent Ipsos poll found that 26 percent of respondents said they would not vote for either candidate or would cast a blank ballot. Many voters are not just weighing candidates from the left against the right, but two political groupings rooted in fights over who gets to wield power and how far they can go to keep it. “Both candidates (have) a political legacy marked by ‘coup traditions,’” Alberto Vergara, a professor at the University of the Pacific, told Peruvian news outlet Ojo Público. “Everyone is democratic as long as election results do not endanger their position.” Meanwhile, a judge began evaluating on May 27 whether Sánchez must stand trial, but the hearing was continued to June 4. It is unclear whether such a ruling would automatically remove him from the runoff. Sánchez is accused of falsifying information about campaign contributions, diverting them into his personal accounts and making false statements in financial reports tied to party contributions and filings from 2018 to 2021. Prosecutors are asking for a five-year sentence and permanent disqualification from running in any presidential race. He denies wrongdoing. If Sánchez remains in the race, his electoral strength lies in the anti-establishment anger that powered Castillo’s rise. He served as trade minister under Castillo, the leftist president impeached and arrested in 2022 after trying to dissolve Congress and rule by decree. Many Castillo supporters saw his impeachment and the deadly crackdown on the protests that followed as proof that the Peruvian ruling class would not respect poorer and rural Peruvians. Fujimori, meanwhile, can cast Sánchez as a risky choice in a country already exhausted by instability. Supporters see her as a candidate of order in a country frightened by a startling rise in crime. But her party’s clout in Congress is also a liability. Critics say Fujimorismo has used Congress to fuel impeachment fights and weaken checks and balances, helping trap Peru in a cycle of unstable presidencies – Peru is about to elect its ninth president in a decade after years of presidents resigning, being ousted or serving only interim terms. Analysts told El País the runoff is another election driven less by hope than by fear of the alternative. “Unfortunately, the vote has been so divided that we will once again end up with two candidates for whom the vast majority of Peruvians would not vote,” said Julio F. Carrión, a professor at the University of Delaware. Some analysts say there is a chance the election may set Peru on a new path regardless of the turmoil in the election itself. “This election may help end the chronic political instability,” Americas Quarterly wrote. “What is less clear is whether it will improve public policy in a country where this has become the preserve of special interests, some of them illegal.”