Skip to content

Peru

Dirty Tricks Campaign In Peru To Deny The Left’s Presidential Victory

Half an hour’s taxi ride from the House of Pizarro, the presidential palace in Lima, Peru, is a high-security prison at the Callao naval base. The prison was built to hold leaders of Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), particularly Abimael Guzmán. Not far from Guzmán’s cell is that of Vladimiro Montesinos, intelligence chief under former President Alberto Fujimori, who is also now imprisoned. Montesinos was sentenced to a 20-year prison term in 2006 for embezzlement, influence peddling, and abuse of power. Now, audio files from phone calls made by Montesinos from his prison indicate an attempt to influence the results of Peru’s presidential election after Pedro Castillo, the candidate of the left-wing Perú Libre party, won the election. By the evening of June 6, 2021, Peru’s National Jury of Elections should have declared Pedro Castillo the winner of the presidential election.

Peru: Journalist Warns Of Bolivia-Style Coup After The Election

Peru’s elitist right-wing forces behind presidential contender Keiko Fujimori are leading a “political propaganda” campaign of fraud allegations against her leftist rival Pedro Castillo and even considering a military coup to block his rise to power, a local journalist has declared. “What is happening in Peru is that we have this election strategy of fear made by the right-wing forces, the private media, and also by the economic powers supporting Fujimori… claiming that if Castillo wins the election, the country will become a dictatorship like Venezuela,” said Luis Garate in an interview with Press TV. Warning of a potential coup attempt by Fujimori’s military-backed ultra-right elements, Garate further underlined that the threat posed by these right-wing forces “is that they are trying to impose this alternative reality, the fake news.

Pedro Castillo’s Victory Raises Hopes Beyond Peru

Peru’s long-standing polarity between a large extension of coastal region, where the nation’s wealth is concentrated, and the much-neglected interior was on full display in the June 6 presidential election. But the polarity was not just geographical. It wasn’t just that the winning candidate, Pedro Castillo, received the lion’s share of his votes from the interior, known as the “Other Peru.” Nor that Lima and other coastal cities favored Keiko Fujimori, particularly in middle class districts. The election also pitted two candidates with very dissimilar backgrounds against each other: Fujimori, a former first lady and three-time presidential candidate with the solid support of the nation’s elite, against Castillo, who is the epitome of an outsider. Castillo, a primary school teacher since the age of 25, has never held an elected office.

A Peasant-Teacher Just Won The Peruvian Elections

On the ground in Lima, the cloud of political uncertainty remains so thick it can be difficult to grasp the basic facts about this election and its historic importance for the people of Peru. The election of peasant-teacher Pedro Castillo from the Perú Libre (Free Peru) party as the new Peruvian president on 6 June was a victory for the country’s popular forces – an outcome almost impossible to imagine even just a few months ago. Castillo’s win has seen Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of former Peruvian neoliberal dictator Alberto Fujimori, lose the presidential race for the third time in ten years – and to a coalition of rural peasants, the urban working classes, Indigenous communities from the Andes to the Amazon, and leftists of all stripes.

Will Keiko Fujimori Burn The Country Down Before Accepting Defeat?

Lima, Peru – Keiko Fujimori, the political heiress to the jailed Peruvian former dictator Alberto Fujimori, appears to have lost her third election in a row. This time, she has been defeated by Pedro Castillo, a leftist teacher from the rural Andes who narrowly leads in a deliberately delayed poll. Facing a possible 30 years sentence for an array of corruption-related charges, Keiko is now challenging hundreds of thousands of ballots already deemed to be valid. In a move that resembles former US President Donald Trump’s recent defeat and subsequent rejection of election results, Fujimori is going for a hat-trick: she has called “fraud” on the two last elections after losing, both times without success.

Peru Electoral Authorities Extend Deadline For Fujimori Fraud Claims

Peru’s National Elections Court (Jurado Nacional de Elecciones, JNE) has extended the deadline for presenting motions to nullify votes. The move will benefit far-right candidate Keiko Fujimori who is presenting a flurry of spurious claims of she says constitutes ‘electoral fraud’.  The deadline for presenting complaints was 8pm, Wednesday, June 9th. The new deadline is now Friday, June 11th at 8pm. Of the 771 motions to annul presented so far, 741 are from Keiko Fujimori’s Fuerza Popular party and 30 are from Pedro Castillo’s Peru Libre party.  Pedro Castillo has rejected the move stating, “If it is true that the JNE intends to extend the deadline to present motions to nullify vote, it would be violating electoral norms.

Social Movements And Protestors Intensify Struggle In Colombia

In today’s episode of the Daily Round-up we look at the ongoing national strike in Colombia and the establishment of the National People’s Assembly by various social movements, the ongoing vote count in Peru as the presidential runoff elections draw to a close, a countrywide strike for better wages and safe working conditions by health workers in New Zealand, the ongoing strike to demand a renewal of wages by garment and textile workers in Lesotho, and 6 years of the #NiUnaMenos movement against femicide and other forms of gender-based violence.

Peru: Castillo Ahead By 100,000 Votes

Peru Libre candidate Pedro Castillo has rejected accusations of fraud in the Peruvian elections and has encouraged his supporters to defend the vote in a “historic vigil”. Monday night’s vigil showed the streets of downtown Lima full of supporters of Prof. Castillo, who waving flags and chanting “the people united will never be defeated” showed exemplary discipline and commitment to the new Peru that is coming. On the other hand, the narco-corrupt candidate Keiko Fujimori, in her desperation for a defeat that is becoming inevitable as the hours go by, denounced on Monday night something that even the most fanatic of her supporters do not believe; a “systematic fraud”, for which she did not provide any consistent evidence.

Fujimori Also Cried Fraud In 2016

Peru’s far-right presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori is making allegations of electoral fraud, as leftist candidate Pedro Castillo has maintained the lead in the official count. This is not the first time she’s made unsubstantiated claims, however there is far more at stake for Keiko in this election. Today’s sequence of events have been remarkably similar to the presidential election in 2016, in which Keiko Fujimori also failed in the second round run-off, at that time against liberal candidate Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. Like in this election, exit polls showed Fujimori ahead by a tiny margin within a statistical margin of error. Once the votes were counted, that small lead was reversed to deliver a narrow victory to her opponent.

Rural Teacher Pedro Castillo Poised To Write A New Chapter In Peru’s History

With his wide-brimmed peasant hat and oversized teacher’s pencil held high, Peru’s Pedro Castillo has been traveling the country exhorting voters to get behind a call that has been particularly urgent during this devastating pandemic: “No más pobres en un país rico” - No more poor people in a rich country. In a cliffhanger of an election with a huge urban-rural and class divide, it appears that the rural teacher, farmer and union leader is about to make history by defeating--by less than one percent--powerful far-right candidate Keiko Fujimori, scion of the country’s political “Fujimori dynasty.” Fujimori is challenging the election’s results, alleging widespread fraud. Her campaign has only presented evidence of isolated irregularities, and so far there is nothing to suggest a tainted vote.

Peru: Exit Poll Shows Technical Tie

The pollster Ipsos published this Sunday the exit polls of the second round of the presidential elections in Peru. With a difference of 0.6% of votes, the candidate Keiko Fujimori, from Fuerza Popular, and her rival, Pedro Castillo, from Peru Libre, are in a technical tie, considering that the margin of error of the study is +/- 3 %. “We have a statistical tie, within the margin of error, a very tight tie. There is no way to declare a winner at this moment,” the director of Ipsos Peru, Alfredo Torres, told América TV channel. Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa from Chicago, who is in Peru monitoring the elections, recalled a similar incident in the 2016 presidential election in Peru, when Keiko Fujimori, candidate that time also, had a similar advantage in exit polls, and a few hours later Pedro Pablo Kuczynski had won.

Peru Elections: Will There Be A Left-Wing Resurgence?

On June 6, 25 million Peruvians will elect their next president and two vice presidents for the period 2021-2026. Leftist candidate Pedro Castillo of the Free Peru political party will face off against far-right candidate Keiko Fujimori of the Popular Force party. All major polls have predicted a victory for Castillo. With inputs from Daniela Ramos of ARG Medios who is in Lima.

A New Peru, Struggling To Be Born?

While November saw two Peruvian presidents removed in a week and the emergence of a grassroots movement to defend democracy, there are no clear answers yet as to who will benefit in the long term. It is not the first time that Plaza San Martín, one of the major squares in Lima’s historic centre, has been surrounded by police and filled with protestors demonstrating against the country’s political elite, but this time something felt different. The week beginning 9 November saw a series of major demonstrations pop up around Lima, and across Peru, in condemnation of the removal of President Martín Vizcarra from power by the Peruvian Congress.

Peru’s Youth Have Mobilized In Indignation

Mass protests broke out after Peru’s parliament voted to impeach former president Martin Vizcarra on November 9th, installing Manuel Merino of the Accion Popular party, as head of state for the 5 months left till the country’s general elections.  The Peruvian left are not supporters of former neoliberal president Vizcarra, but have condemned the impeachment that has been carried out by forces even further to his right, “The new government has named Ántero Flores Aráoz as president of the Council of Ministers, he is the best representative of the old politics: conservative, far-right, racist, sexist, a few years ago...

Is Peru Witnessing A Parliamentary Coup?

Peruvians have  been taking to the streets to reject the impeachment and removal of Martín Vizcarra from the office of president on Monday, November 9. After a four-hour debate in the Peruvian Congress on Monday evening, Vizcarra was impeached with 105 members of Congress voting to remove him on account of “moral incapacity” due to his alleged involvement in acts of corruption. The impeachment is the tipping point in a conflict between the legislative and executive branches of government of Peru which had intensified in the last two years.
assetto corsa mods

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Sign Up To Our Daily Digest

Independent media outlets are being suppressed and dropped by corporations like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our daily email digest before it’s too late so you don’t miss the latest movement news.