In Peru, 43 organisations have registered to compete in the upcoming elections. Twenty-nine of them have registered in the Registry of Political Organisations (ROP) and 14 have pending complementary procedures. Others have announced that they will seek alliances.
The deadline was 12 July and the Jurado National Electoral Board confirmed that there would be no extension, although there would still be an excessive number of choices for president, vice-presidents, senators and deputies.
The dispersion led to the fragmentation of the parliament, which, in the fourth of the five-year term, also divided the majority of the benches, causing dozens of legislators to migrate to other parties.
Other factors in the crisis include social dissatisfaction with the so-called gaps that the neoliberal economic model has been unable to fill in more than three decades of existence, citizen insecurity and the rejection by those in power of profound economic and social changes through a constituent assembly.
Among those who have organised new parties or borrowed acronyms in order to run are former presidents, a comic actor, a television commentator and two businessmen.
The transfers from one party to another are countless and the most curious is that of Interior Minister Juan José Santiváñez, who appears on the list of militants of the Progresemos group, headed by the octogenarian and neoliberal economist Hernando de Soto.
De Soto and his discourse of so-called popular capitalism failed in 2021 as the presidential candidate of the Advance Country party, from which he dissociated himself after his defeat.
Advance Country (Avanza País) added to its ranks comedian Carlos Álvarez, who has presidential pretensions with ultra-right-wing positions, and other right-wing figures such as the current government’s Minister of Education, Óscar Becerra, and former members of the military.
With the prospect of running for office, the pardoned octogenarian ex-president Alberto Fujimori, two former presidents imprisoned on various charges, Pedro Castillo and Alejandro Toledo, and one on trial for corruption, Martín Vizcarra, have registered with various parties. Fujimori appears on the list of his daughter Keiko Fujimori’s Popular Force party; Castillo in the new grouping Todos con el Pueblo (Together with the people); the neoliberal Toledo in the Democratic Green Party and Vizcarra in Peru First.
Meanwhile, on the right, the unifying factor is to prevent the election of the radical nationalist Antauro Humala, as preliminary polls on electoral trends show him with a chance of going through to the foreseeable second round of elections against the pro-Fujimori party Popular Force (FP).
FP leader Keiko Fujimori, who has lost three run-off elections, recently announced the candidacy for president of her father, Alberto Fujimori, who was released from prison in December 2023 following a controversial pardon.
The announcement sparked immediate questions from jurists and political analysts who consider it legally unfeasible. Constitutionalist Luciano López has said that the Constitution prohibits those sentenced for intentional crimes from running for any office, since the pardon granted to Fujimori in December 2023 does not exonerate him of guilt for state crimes and corruption and only reduces his sentence. On the left, there are no surprises and the New Peru Movement, the Workers and Entrepreneurs Party, Ahora Nación, Popular Unity, Voces del Pueblo (Voices of the people) and Together for Peru are all qualified to compete in the elections scheduled for 2026. In this political sector, attempts to integrate into a front are still incipient and seek to halt the advances of an extreme right-wing bloc allied with the centre-right forces with which it controls Parliament.
In the neo-liberal and far-right camp, businessmen Carlos Añaños and Fernando Cillóniz are running for the presidency. PL
(Translated by Cristina Popa – Email: gcpopa83@gmail.com) – Photos: Pixabay
.jpg)
