Peru’s left-wing presidential candidate becomes the elite of his business

Wearing a huge cowboy hat and wearing a giant yellow pencil – a symbol of his political party – Pedro Castillo has cut a strange and colorful image as he travels through the Peruvian presidential campaign.

In the rooms of the elite companies of Lima and the committees of the mining companies that generate a lot of wealth in Peru, no one is shown grace.

Castillo, a 51-year-old school teacher and union leader, emerged from political obscurity to win the first round in a shameless Marxist card in the last month of elections.

His party, Peru Peru (Free Peru), just wants a revolution in Latin America’s fifth most populous nation, trying to overthrow the free market model that has ruled the country for a generation.

In the manifesto, the party says that foreign mining companies should be forced to pay 80% of the profits to the state, rather than the “miserable” 10%, 20 or 30% they now pay.

“If companies don’t accept the new conditions. . . the state must continue with nationalization, ”Peru Libre warned.

The problem with Castillo versus Fujimori in the second round is that so many voters consider both candidates to be reprehensible.

The party’s founder, Vladimir Cerrón, has named Venezuelan Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, Cuban Daniel Ortega and Fidel and Raúl Castro as “elected presidential groups that have given dignity to the continent.”

“The program is a return to the 1970s,” said Roxana Barrantes, a professor of economics at the Pontifical Catholic University of Lima. “You read it and you think ‘my God, what is this ?!’

The financial markets aren’t worried about the unexpected – not only because of Castillo’s wide victory in the first round, but subsequent polls suggest he’ll be able to lead his opponent in next month’s second round of voting, Keiko Fujimori, the country’s former authoritarian president’s daughter. Alberto Fujimori.

In the two weeks following the first vote on April 11, Peru’s currency, the sol, fell more than 4 percent and hit an all-time low of 3.85 on the dollar, with the stock market more than 12 percent. The spread between 10-year sovereign bonds and U.S. Treasuries increased by more than 71 points and the guarantee against arrears became more expensive as five-year default credit swaps reached their highest level this year after the first round.

One last survey found that three-quarters of Peruvian companies have investment plans until after the June 6 election.

“We don’t have information about the capital flight yet, but all the anecdotal evidence says that people want to make money,” said former Finance Minister Alonso Segura.

“I have friends who are wealth managers and are overworked, they open bank accounts in Panama and the US. It’s hard to know how broad and expressive it is, but it’s definitely happening.”

It is not clear how much Castillo believes in the radical manifesto of Peru Libre, which also calls for a re-evaluation of the new constitution formed by the people’s assembly and the country’s free trade agreements.

Perhaps wary of wasting himself, he has given few interviews and thought of presidential debates.

Knowing he had to go to the offensive, Fujimori went to the town of Chota last weekend, in the northern Andes of Peru, where Castillo has his electoral base. There, he hurried to a sudden discussion on the stage in a hurry in the town square.

Loyal to his party’s manifesto, Castillo appealed to foreign multinationals and said they had “removed the country from office”.

“They have to have gold, silver, zinc for the Peruvians,” he said. “It’s time to pick the man from the village. No more poor people in a rich country! ”.

For those concerned about the presidency of Castillo, there is peace in the mathematical panorama of Peru’s political rupture. At the next congress, Peru Libre will be the largest party with only 37 of the 130 seats.

He will fight with the help of other leftists to get a third of the parliamentary votes to avoid Castillo’s impeachment, let alone two-thirds that would require him to change the constitution.

“Look at his proposals. They cannot be established without full control of the congress, “said former Finance Minister Alfredo Thorne.

“Where the price of copper is, most mines around the world are profitable. You don’t have to be in Peru to get copper. “

With a month to go, Fujimori has a chance to win, though he is left behind by about 10 percentage points and hated by many Peruvians, who associate him with his father’s divisive rule in the 90s and his recent obstruction as a congressman. years.

More than two-thirds of voters did not vote for the candidates in the first round. About 10-18 percent say they don’t know who to return to in the second, and that a maximum of a quarter will ruin the vote.

“The problem with Castillo versus Fujimori’s elimination is that so many voters are condemning both candidates,” Teneo, a political adviser, said.