Peruvian Elections and Politics: Boluarte era, political crisis continues

[Red Velvet]

Yup, I knew people shouldn’t underestimate the massive power of anti-Fujimori sentiment. There are probably even some anti-leftists voters who would rather become a Venezuela or Cuba than to be forced to vote for that woman regardless of their right-wing ideological allignement.

Besides the Fujimori brand being toxic and the hate being already deserved because of that, add to that the fact she also is a woman associated with corruption running in Peru. It’s almost like a far-right way more corrupt Hillary Clinton in a more conservative country where her father was a dictator and now is in jail.

The misogyny alone would be enough to make people personally look at outsider Castillo as a more friendly option. Add all the rest and this 58% vs 42% margin doesn’t surprise me at all.

That said, I think it may be closer to the two previous elections than polls are currently showing. Campaign is just starting. It could still go either way.

[Red Velvet]

I expect a lot of those wanting to spoil their ballots now will break for Keiko Fujimori. Still; seems like it’s going to take massive work to get Keiko elected, either in enthusiasm for her or in the eventual stealing of this election if normal electoral means are off the table.

Maybe, but I’m not too sure about that. From the same poll...

Pedro Castillo:
Definitely will vote for 34%
Could vote for 18%
Probably won’t vote for 8%
Definitely won’t vote for 33%

Keiko Fujimori:
Definitely will vote for 20%
Could vote for 15%
Probably won’t vote for 5%
Definitely won’t vote for 55%

That is a (current) ceiling of 52% to Castillo and only 35% to Fujimori. Meaning he also has more potential of growth.

What could benefit Keiko is how the campaign develops and how successful she is at attaching Castillo’s image to something more negative than hers. She could win but she will have to work hard.

[Velasco]

Mario Vargas Llosa has endorsed Keiko Fujimori in his weekly article released by El País, arguing that she is the lesser evil and a victory of Pedro Castillo would imply the establishment of a communist society. Vargas Llosa lambasts Castillo for being economically far-left and socially far-right, while he claims having no doubt that Castillo would suppress free elections. The issue is that Vargas Llosa has also the certainty that a victory of Castillo would lead to a military coup in the short term. So either there is a castrochavista regime or a reactionary military junta, for it's not possible to have both things simultaneously. The Nobel Prize winner admits that Keiko Fujimori is a corrupt, while he himself was a staunch opponent of her father since that electoral defeat in 1990. But Vargas Llosa thinks now that Keiko Fujimori has the opportunity to build a more modern, free and just Peru with the support of a broad social base. He considers Peruvians voted wrong in the first round, so he asks them not to duplicate the mistake choosing the comminist instead of the fascist. In the orevious election Vargas Llosa said that a victory of Keiko would be a vindication of Alberto Fujimori's dictatorship.

[Red Velvet]

That’s a relevant support for Keiko, even if I don’t really think Pedro Castillo voters are people likely to care about Vargas Llosa lol. If anything, people who care most likely didn’t even know who Castillo was before the results. But some “in the fence” undecided center and center-right Anti-Fujimori voters from Lima could feel more comfortable in supporting her after this.

Pedro Castillo responded:

https://mobile.twitter.com/PedroCastilloTe/status/1383559854996873217

“This is the real Peru, the Peru of the invisible and of the fighters; a country that was never known by Vargas Llosa, who from his mansion in Spain continues to believe that Peru is a colony.

From Jaén, Cajamarca, the people of Peru are committed to a democratic country.”

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Honestly this pretty much the only election in the world I could possibly think of leaving a blank-vote. Actual human right abusing facist heir vs tankie communist, my sympathy is with the people of Peru.

[warandwar]

Honestly this pretty much the only election in the world I could possibly think of leaving a blank-vote. Actual human right abusing facist heir vs tankie communist, my sympathy is with the people of Peru.

Pretty absurd to compare an indigenous teachers union leader in rural Peru to anime Stalinists on twitter imo.

[CumbrianLefty]

We know that Fujimori will be bad, there is more chance of persuading Castillo not to be bad.

That's how I see it anyway.

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

Honestly this pretty much the only election in the world I could possibly think of leaving a blank-vote. Actual human right abusing facist heir vs tankie communist, my sympathy is with the people of Peru.

Pretty absurd to compare an indigenous teachers union leader in rural Peru to anime Stalinists on twitter imo.

The party is openly Marxist-Leninist-Mariateguist (aka Stalinist),  prominent members have already began talking in public about how they need to censor and intimidate the media (including closing TV channels by force for having the wrong opinions) and about closing the Congress if they don't like that they don't pass their bills (sadly this last one is a pretty common opinion in Peru across the whole spectrum), and as is tradition with tankies the party blindly follows Russia's foreign policy goals and talking points (incl. openly defending Assad, North Korea and other Russia/China-aligned authoritarian and totalitarian regimes)
The guy seen above defending the North Korean regime isn't some random "anime Stalinist" but a candidate for Congress, as is the leading figure on the media censorship campaign, which has been openly supported by Castillo himself
Pedro Castillo himself may not be a tankie, mostly because he doesn't know that much about formal ideologies, but the party is at least extremely close to being officially tankie
And it's increasingly clear that Castillo is little more than a puppet of Vladimir Cerrón, a former governor that's been
sentenced for extremely obvious acts of corruption

[Skye]

Honestly this pretty much the only election in the world I could possibly think of leaving a blank-vote. Actual human right abusing facist heir vs tankie communist, my sympathy is with the people of Peru.

Pretty absurd to compare an indigenous teachers union leader in rural Peru to anime Stalinists on twitter imo.

True, Twitter Stalinists with anime pfps don't represent a tangible danger to an entire country.

[Velasco]

Honestly this pretty much the only election in the world I could possibly think of leaving a blank-vote. Actual human right abusing facist heir vs tankie communist, my sympathy is with the people of Peru.

Pretty absurd to compare an indigenous teachers union leader in rural Peru to anime Stalinists on twitter imo.

True, Twitter Stalinists with anime pfps don't represent a tangible danger to an entire country.

That's not a bad point and maybe we should focus the discussion on tangible dangers.

Assuming both candidates are awful, who is more dangerous? The indigenous teachers union, or the daughter of Alberto Fujimori? In other words, assuming both candidates have authoritarian designs, which one has more chances to succeed? Who would count with the support of the army and the factual powers of Perú,  Fujimori or Castillo?

If I was Peruvian, I would try to have answers for these questions before going to the polling station. My heart obviously wants me to stay at home or waste my ballot, but my head could advice me to opt for the least dangerous

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Honestly this pretty much the only election in the world I could possibly think of leaving a blank-vote. Actual human right abusing facist heir vs tankie communist, my sympathy is with the people of Peru.

Pretty absurd to compare an indigenous teachers union leader in rural Peru to anime Stalinists on twitter imo.

True, Twitter Stalinists with anime pfps don't represent a tangible danger to an entire country.

That's not a bad point and maybe we should focus the discussion on tangible dangers.

Assuming both candidates are awful, who is more dangerous? The indigenous teachers union, or the daughter of Alberto Fujimori? In other words, assuming both candidates have authoritarian designs, which one has more chances to succeed? Who would count with the support of the army and the factual powers of Perú,  Fujimori or Castillo?

If a was Peruvian, I would try to have answers for these questions before going to the polling station. My heart obviously wants me to stay at home or waste my ballot, but my head could advice me to opt for the less dangerous

I mean it's debatable, Fujimoro winning would ensure that almost everyone was hyper villigant about any steps back to aristocracy. Castillo has been far more open about his authoritarianism and is likley to face a bit less resistance due to unfamiliarity, look at the post above claiming that his status as an indengenious union leader makes him harmless.

Obviously that doesn't justify a vote for Fujimoro but I don't think backing another authorain will leed to good things.

[warandwar]

If you want to criticize Castillo, go ahead. But please be accurate. "Tankie communist" doesn't contribute much to the conversation. (I'd point out that like a third self-described "tankies" are trans whereas Castillo is rather noxiously against "gender ideology.") I also think that an analysis that deems him a "puppet" is quite weak. PL has 0 organization outside of Cerron's base. Castillo's organization and manpower clearly comes from SUTE (organization of local bases of SUTEP, the natl teacher's union), more than the Party. Castillo is no dope, you dont become president of the grassroots of a teachers union without some smarts. And let's be honest, the *Spanish * language media barely covered him before April. Can any of us really say we've done our research and have a complete picture here?

Edit: Do you seriously think the Peruvian media and state apparatus wouldn't be intensely skeptical of a leftist Indian president with no support in Lima? No way they'd consider him "harmless" lol, they're the ones saying he is secretely controlled by Guzman!

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

If you want to criticize Castillo, go ahead. But please be accurate. "Tankie communist" doesn't contribute much to the conversation. (I'd point out that like a third self-described "tankies" are trans whereas Castillo is rather noxiously against "gender ideology.") I also think that an analysis that deems him a "puppet" is quite weak. PL has 0 organization outside of Cerron's base. Castillo's organization and manpower clearly comes from SUTE (organization of local bases of SUTEP, the natl teacher's union), more than the Party. Castillo is no dope, you dont become president of the grassroots of a teachers union without some smarts. And let's be honest, the *Spanish * language media barely covered him before April. Can any of us really say we've done our research and have a complete picture here?

Edit: Do you seriously think the Peruvian media and state apparatus wouldn't be intensely skeptical of a leftist Indian president with no support in Lima?

Tankies isn't an internet phenomena, their internet presence is merely an annoying outcrop of the existing ideology. His party is an unreformed marxist-lenninst party that advocatess for the aboishment of an electoral democracy and suppresion of critics.
IRL tankies are often very socialy conservative sharing with many on the right the idea that social progressivism is an elite plot to divide and suppress working classes.

[warandwar]

His Party is not "unreformed marxist-leninist." The "unreformed" party supported Mendoza. Please do your research.

[Red Velvet]

IRL tankies are often very socialy conservative sharing with many on the right the idea that social progressivism is an elite plot to divide and suppress working classes.

Not inherently, I agree these concepts are not contradictory at all indeed. But the way these conversations happen currently is a strategy from the richest to silence the working class material struggles, yes.

You cannot just pretend there isn’t a divide all over most places in which people from the big cities vote for the left when it’s about social progressivism, while economically they don’t tend to care much about inequality as they are generally speaking more economically privileged and have more infrastructure to attend their needs.

While people from the interior or smaller towns mostly feel abandoned in regards infrastructure and if they vote for the left, it’s because of the economic policies focusing inequalities as they want to have access to same services and have better quality of life.

City elites treat these people and their basic human needs as invisible regardless who they are and who they vote for. Because the real issue for them isn’t about conservatives vs progressives, they don’t really care about that, only maintaining their class privileges.

The forgotten ones can be the Indigenous people in Peru outside Lima who are the backbone of country but are treated like a weird foreign entity by the media.

They can be rural French voters who see their communities being abandoned and small business closed as the years pass as the only place where opportunities are in the big cities.

They can be US working class voters who don’t live in the coast and suffer with deindustrialization effects and get angry that no solution to their problems is offered by the political establishment, who uses a woke political speech only to create an image that they care about people without having to  propose real big change that affects their life.

The narratives to delegitimize these people’s existence are always the same, regardless if they’re more progressive or conservative; black, indigenous or white; male or female; etc.

It doesn’t matter who these people are to accept that their voices, their wounds and their demands should be heard. They are human beings with struggles like everyone else.

If most social progressives really care about inclusion like they say, they have to include the interests of the poor as well and make them participate on conversations instead of excluding.

People are more open to deconstruct themselves and their conservative beliefs when they have quality education background, good infrastructure surrounding them, job opportunities, when they don’t have to worry about their health or if their house is under risk of getting flooded, that kind of basic human rights things that STILL don’t exist in many places but high-education elites like to pretend it doesn’t because it’s outside their bubble of privilege.

Even in the US, the same arrogant woke progressive whites who love to call everyone racist, homophobic, etc are the same ones who on the top of all their privilege often criticize Latino communities and Black communities for sometimes being more conservative on some matters and call them sexist and other stuff.

Like the movie “Parasite” said, it’s sooooooo easy to be a good person (or a “woke progressive”) when you don’t have anything else to worry about.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

If the question was which candidate would be worse if they actually were able to push their agenda that'd be Castillo pretty much without question. Peru under Fujimori was corrupt and poor but it was like Switzerland compared to Maduro's Venezuela.

But that isn't the question, so it becomes more complicated. Castillo threatens to shut down Congress but would he really have the popular support to get away with it? Hugo Chávez was an officer so he won the support of the army, Castillo doesn't really have those connections. Plus, to my understanding the army is quite anti-communist thanks to several decades of fighting the Shining Path. It seems like he'd have a tall mountain to climb to actually achieve his goals.

The best case scenario would be if Castillo won but was too unpopular to get anything done or else had a Humala style change of heart once in office. Fujimori winning is bad no matter what and she could probably finagle support for her corruption from the legislators but even the worst Fujimori administration wouldn't lead to millions of Peruvian refugees fleeing for their lives. Good thing I don't have to make that choice.

Also, RV's comparison is apt. This Quechua girl mocking Limans wouldn't be out of place at a Trump rally owning libs. When people feel their interests aren't represented they'll go with whoever at least gives lip service, and after a while just knowing that those who ignored and insulted them are afraid is all they need. Maoism might be an insane ideology but when they're the only ones promising a better life in any given mountain village I have a hard time blaming the peasants for jumping on board. It's unfortunate that the policies that would actually help such people are generally tied in with corrupt elites.

[Bakersfield Uber Alles]

God, what a mess. I might be supporting a bill vote at this point.

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

His Party is not "unreformed marxist-leninist." The "unreformed" party supported Mendoza. Please do your research.

"On the nature of the Party
...Therefore, calling oneself "left-wing" when you're don't openly consider yourself as Marxist, Leninist or Mariateguista is to work in support of the right wing with the highest degree of hypocisy
(Sobre la naturaleza del Partido...Por tanto, decirse de izquierda cuando no nos reconocernos marxistas, leninistas o mariateguístas, es simplemente obrar en favor de la
derecha con decoro de la más alta hipocresía.)
- Ideario y Programa de Perú Libre http://perulibre.pe/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/ideario-peru-libre.pdf

Yes, there are quite a few unreformed ML's in Veronika's party and Frente Amplio, but they aren't  the main wing of the party as is the case with PL

[Хahar 🤔]

As fascinated as I might be by these endless posts about whether Pedro Castillo is good or bad, I'd like to talk about the actual election results.

Castillo's vote is generally not very interesting (although it's noteworthy that his home region of Cajamarca has a fairly low indigenous population); we know who voted for Castillo. I'm more interested in who voted for Fujimori. I'm not talking about people who voted for her because she's the lesser of two evils; even though she got her lowest vote share yet this time, the fact that she made it into the runoff is proof enough that she has a serious base of support.

Who are the people who vote for Fujimori? I don't have a great sense except that they tend to live closer to the coast. Clearly they're nostalgic for the '90s, but what social classes do they belong to? Who were the winners of the Fujimori presidency?

I expect a lot of those wanting to spoil their ballots now will break for Keiko Fujimori. Still; seems like it’s going to take massive work to get Keiko elected, either in enthusiasm for her or in the eventual stealing of this election if normal electoral means are off the table.

Maybe, but I’m not too sure about that. From the same poll...

Pedro Castillo:
Definitely will vote for 34%
Could vote for 18%
Probably won’t vote for 8%
Definitely won’t vote for 33%

Keiko Fujimori:
Definitely will vote for 20%
Could vote for 15%
Probably won’t vote for 5%
Definitely won’t vote for 55%

That is a (current) ceiling of 52% to Castillo and only 35% to Fujimori. Meaning he also has more potential of growth.

What could benefit Keiko is how the campaign develops and how successful she is at attaching Castillo’s image to something more negative than hers. She could win but she will have to work hard.

That 55% figure is surprising given that she got 40% in the first round and 50% in the second round just five years ago. Obviously Keiko Fujimori has not covered herself in glory in the last half-decade any more than anyone else in Peruvian politics did, but it's noteworthy that a significant portion of her vote from 2016 is now supposedly unwinnable for her.

[PSOL]

Keiko Fujimori not only went against a then popular president, but her party of yes-men almost split between her and her brother. These past few years, the only support base she has are the hardcore Fujimorists, while even the middle class is sick of the never-ending Keiko-Kayak leading the nation into more turbulent waters.

[Хahar 🤔]

Are there really Kenji partisans? I figured he was completely finished after he was caught on camera bribing legislators to support PPK. I suppose that even if his political party no longer exists, his past supporters might still be anti-Keiko.

[PSOL]

Are there really Kenji partisans? I figured he was completely finished after he was caught on camera bribing legislators to support PPK. I suppose that even if his political party no longer exists, his past supporters might still be anti-Keiko.

Who even knows at this point? By next election in like a year and four months Kenji Fujimori might be leading the third largest party.

[Bakersfield Uber Alles]

Are there really Kenji partisans? I figured he was completely finished after he was caught on camera bribing legislators to support PPK. I suppose that even if his political party no longer exists, his past supporters might still be anti-Keiko.

Who even knows at this point? By next election in like a year and four months Kenji Fujimori might be leading the third largest party.

Ah, Peru. Such a fascinating place over the last few years. Unfortunately it’s to the country’s detriment.

[warandwar]

For the sake of accuracy - PL is made by ethnocaecerists turned towards the Left. Not "unreformed," and showing traces of their journey (nationalist left populism, caudillism). The "unreformed" parties backed Mendoza and i assume will back Castillo in the runoff, with their dozens of followers in tow. Castillo has said he's not a Marxist. Whether or not you take him for his word is another matter.

Internal refugees from the SL conflict settled along the coast and and outskirts of Lima. Perhaps these are the Fujimori voters?

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

For the sake of accuracy - PL is made by ethnocaecerists turned towards the Left. Not "unreformed," and showing traces of their journey (nationalist left populism, caudillism). The "unreformed" parties backed Mendoza and i assume will back Castillo in the runoff, with their dozens of followers in tow. Castillo has said he's not a Marxist. Whether or not you take him for his word is another matter.

Nationalist populism and caudillismo have been positions informally held by many self-proclaimed "unreformed" MLs since the days of Stalin himself