Peruvians vote to elect president, divided by class, geography (updated)
06/06/2021 14:23
(Updates with polls opening, candidates' comments)
By Marco Aquino and Marcelo Rochabrun
LIMA/TACABAMBA, Peru, June 6 (Reuters) - Peruvians began
voting to pick a president on Sunday in an election that has
bitterly divided them by class and geography, with urban and
higher-income citizens preferring right-wing Keiko Fujimori
while the rural poor support leftist political novice Pedro
Castillo.
Polls in the runoff election began to open at 7 a.m. (1200
GMT), with long queues building up early at some centres in the
capital Lima of people bundled up against the cold of the
southern hemisphere late autumn.
Citizens have been invited to vote according to their
numbers on their identity cards in a bid to avoid large crowds
gathering.
Peru almost tripled its coronavirus death toll last week
following a government review, meaning it now has the world's
worst death rate per capita during the pandemic.
Opinion polls show the presidential race in a statistical
dead heat but with Fujimori, who had earlier trailed Castillo,
pulling slightly ahead. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N2NN0HZ
Fujimori, 46, the daughter of jailed ex-president Alberto
Fujimori, is promising to maintain economic stability and
pro-free market policies in the world’s second-largest copper
producer.
Castillo, 51, an elementary school teacher and union leader,
has galvanized support from Peru's rural poor - and scared
investors – with pledges including to alter multinational
companies’ tax regimes and rewriting the constitution.
He is from a remote village near the town of Tacabamba, in
Peru's northern Andes, which on Saturday night cheered him as he
made his way back home to vote.
He has previously warned against fraud in the election and
said he would "be the first to summon the people" if he saw
evidence of foul play. On Saturday night, however, he told
crowds he would respect the result.
At an election breakfast in Lima on Sunday morning, Fujimori
told supporters: "Keiko means hope. Let's all go out and vote."
Many Peruvians hold a deep mistrust of politicians following
two decades in which five former presidents have been
investigated or prosecuted for corruption.
Ruth Rojas, a Peruvian mother with a disabled daughter who
said she lived in deep poverty, said she believed neither of the
candidates’ vows.
"They promise everything until they get into government but
then they forget about the poor, they just think of themselves
and their own people," Rojas said.
Pollsters say undecided voters and Peruvians living abroad
could tip the balance.
Overseas Peruvians make up almost 4% of the 25 million on
the electoral roll. Only 0.8% voted in the first round of the
election in April, when COVID-19 lockdowns were commonplace.
However, the head of Peru's National Office of Electoral
Processes, Piero Corvetto, said that with vaccination programs
now further advanced in areas where Peruvian expatriates
predominate - the United States, Spain, Argentina and Chile -
turnout would likely be closer to 1.5%.
(Reporting by Marco Aquino in Lima and Marcelo Rochabrun in
Tacabamba; Additional reporting by Reuters TV; Editing by
William Mallard and Grant McCool)
((marcelo.rochabrun@thomsonreuters.com; +55 11 5644 7768;))