More than 27 million Peruvians are set to vote in the first round of a highly unpredictable presidential election and elect a new parliament on April 12.
With a record-high 35 candidates remaining in the presidential race, opinion polls showed great volatility every week.
The surprising event of an outsider candidate advancing to a second presidential election, as in the case of Pedro Castillo in 2021, remains a possibility given that not all candidates are close to the 50% of the vote required to secure a first-round victory.
Unstable and fragmented voting
In a recent voting simulation, Keiko Fujimori, daughter and political successor to former Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), is ahead in the opinion polls.
The right-wing candidate received 18.1% of the valid votes in this election. newspaper investigation commerceAccording to the IPSOS poll released by , it is 18.6%. Peru 21. Both forecasts were calculated in early April.
The most important development is that center-right candidate Carlos Álvarez has risen from roughly 8th to 2nd place in both opinion polls.% Last week it rose to 10.8%. commerce Survey and 12.1% Peru 21‘S.
Far-right former Lima mayor Rafael López Aliaga may be the candidate who has lost the most votes ahead of Sunday’s election. After months at the top, occasionally rising above Fujimori in opinion polls, he plummeted to 10.3% in voter intent. commerce According to 10.9% Peru 21.
However, the polls from the two media outlets differ on which candidates are currently outside the podium.
According to Peru 21Roberto Sánchez, a left-wing former minister in Castillo’s government, came in fourth place, with voting intentions soaring to 9%. He distanced himself from Jorge Nieto (center) with 5.6% and Cesar Acuña (right) with 5.1%. In this poll, four candidates received more than 3% of the vote.
commerceThe population samples of are not completely shared. Peru 21Sample’s passion for Sánchez. He placed fifth with 7% of the intended vote, behind Nieto (7.2%) and ahead of Ricardo Belmont (center). The latter rose from 2.8% on March 27 to 6.5% in this poll. This time too, four candidates exceeded 3%.
Poll estimates should be interpreted with extreme caution as voter indecisiveness remains strong and outsiders may benefit from misrepresentation or late momentum.
El Comercio’s voting simulation, 10 days ahead of the 2021 first round, placed Castillo in sixth place with 7.9% voting intention.
In the first round of the election, the now-imprisoned president received 18.9% of the vote, beating Fujimori by 5.5 percentage points, before losing in the second round.
The left-wing president, who ran on a rural and indigenous platform, was jailed in late 2022 after trying to dissolve parliament. His vice president, Dina Boluarte, assumed the presidency but was himself ousted in October last year.
Return to the bicameral National Assembly after 36 years
For the first time since 1990, Peruvians will vote for a bicameral parliament.
On Sunday, seats in the House of Representatives (House of Representatives) and Senate will be voted on.
The Senate was abolished in the 1993 constitution, a year after Alberto Fujimori shut down parliament.
Legislative elections are held with a single proportional representation system in all constituencies.
In both houses, parties must meet a 5% national threshold or a minimum number of seats (seven in the House of Representatives and five in the Senate) to qualify for a reformed parliament.
Peru’s serious political crisis
This Sunday’s election will be held amid high political instability and voters’ general disdain for Peru’s political landscape.
In the past 10 years, the United States has had eight presidents, many of whom left office due to resignation, impeachment, or scandal.
Many Peruvians have also lost trust in Congress. The Congress has effectively become more powerful than the executive branch and is responsible for much of Peru’s current political crisis. According to worldMore than half of lawmakers are under investigation for corruption.
Of all the aforementioned candidates, only the parties of Fujimori, López Aliaga and César Acuña are currently members of parliament, underscoring the powerful yet fragmented push for change in the Andean country.
Featured image: Peruvian Congress
Image credit: Genu5960 via Wikimedia Commons
