Peru will vote for a new president on April 12, amid a deep political and institutional crisis.

The Andean country held its last presidential elections in 2021, in which Pedro Castillo won. However, Castillo remained in power for only a year and a half. Since then, Peru has had three presidents, two of them chosen by Congress.

Current leader José María Balcázar is not eligible to run, as presidents need to have completed a full 5-year term to be reelected. 

Peru’s crisis of representation is reflected in the highly fragmented field of candidates in the election: an unprecedented number of 35 contenders will compete. A 36th candidate died in a car crash on March 15.

The result is a bizarrely large single paper ballot (which will be used in Peru’s national elections for the first time). It will be 42×42 centimeters.

In addition to a new president and vice president, Peruvians will also renew its members of Congress, with around 10,000 candidates for almost 200 seats between the senate, the lower house, and the regional Andean Parliament.

The country doesn’t hold primaries, so all those who have registered to be candidates will compete in the general election — which is part of the reason why there are so many competitors. The requirements were also modified, making it easier to register.

Electors are skeptical and indecisive, as 60% still don’t know who to vote for less than two weeks away from the election, according to recent polls.

None of the candidates surpass 13% of vote intention. A presidential candidate needs at least 50% of the vote to win, so there will likely be a runoff in June.

The list of those that will compete next Sunday includes an array of politicians; businesspeople linked to agriculture, mining, and the music industry; an actor; a union leader; retired military officers; and a former football goalie with experience as a mayor.

Also running is fugitive former governor Vladimir Cerrón, who has an arrest warrant due to money laundering and criminal organization charges.

“Many of those who have registered are electoral adventurers,” political scientist Eduardo Dargent told the Herald. “Some are under an opium dream in which they believe they can be presidents, or they are using the candidacy to gain traction for local elections.”

Although none of the candidates seem to have much support, there are two clear front runners.

Keiko Fujimori, former congresswoman and daughter of controversial late president Alberto Fujimori, is on her fourth attempt to win Peru’s presidency. According to a survey by consulting agency Datum Internacional, she leads the list with 13% voter intention.

She is followed by businessman Rafael López Aliaga, also known as “Porky” due to his resemblance to the Looney Tunes character, with an 11.7% approval rate. López Aliaga, an Opus Dei member, resigned as mayor of Lima to pursue the presidency.

The third candidate with the highest voting intention is center-left economist Alfonso López Chau, with 6.5%. The rest are all under 5%.

Over 35% of electors are still undecided about their vote, and 20% have no favorite candidate. “People are very disinterested in politics,” Dargent said.

“Keiko and López Aliaga are both right-wing and have similar proposals, but Keiko is more conservative and the traditional right,” Dargent explained. The political scientist, a lecturer at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, described López Aliaga as a “reformist” or “populist” who “wants to break things apart.”

Some of López Aliaga’s campaign proposals include giving unborn babies an ID as part of his hardline views against abortion. He also opposes the right to abortion in cases where the victim is pregnant as a result of rape, which is the only legal form of abortion in Peru.

Another contentious proposal is placing inmates in camps in the jungle surrounded by poisonous snakes so that they can’t escape.

Fujimori’s proposals include increasing security to lower the homicide rate and allowing the armed forces to take part in operations to control immigration and jails and to carry out police searches.

Four presidents in five years

In Peru, presidents are elected for a period of five years. Current leader José María Balcázar, who was previously a congressman, rose to the position because he was the head of the parliament and therefore the next in line after both the elected president (Castillo) and, later on, the vice president (Dina Boluarte) were removed from office.

He was the second head of Congress to occupy the highest post in the executive branch after his predecessor, José Jerí — who replaced Boluarte last October — was removed after only four months, in February. 

Congress impeached and removed Balcázar’s last three predecessors from office after declaring them “permanently morally incapable” due to corruption and embezzlement accusations. 

The institutional crisis is not new — it has been going on for a decade. Elected president in 2016, Pedro Kuczynski resigned in 2018 over several scandals and protests. One of his successors was removed by Congress, and another resigned after just five days, leaving a third to finish the presidential period.

In total, Peru has had eight presidents in 10 years.

“There has been a change in the past 10 years in which Congress became more dominant over executive power. Currently, that is clearer than ever,” Dargent said.

Former president Castillo has accused Congress of “getting a new puppet” after it removed Boluarte and chose Jerí in October. In November, Castillo was sentenced to 11 years in prison for attempting to shut down Congress in 2022, which led to his own removal.

Aside from a political debacle, Dargent believes there is “a structural crisis” in Peru “where illegal economic activities are on the rise and the executive power is becoming weaker” to confront it.

“Informal sectors are becoming increasingly involved in national and regional politics,” he said, citing informal mining as an example. “The executive power has no bandwidth to react against these issues like it used to.”

While Peruvian presidents have also faced corruption scandals in the past, the current leaders “have been left weakened to face them.”

“It’s not like Peru has turned into a fighter against corruption, but rather that these presidents are weaker and Congress has better tools to get political rivals and presidents who bother them out of the way,” Dargent said.

© Buenos Aires Herald