A far-left activist in Peru vowing to seize foreign mines and the daughter of a former authoritarian president will clash in a presidential election that will give voters two completely different ideological options in a country mistreated by the US. political turmoil and the pandemic.
The election pits Pedro Castillo, a 51-year-old former master who says he would nationalize mining projects and dismantle a business-friendly economic model, against Keiko Fujimori, whose father ruled Peru with an iron fist.
The fact that Mr. Castillo, who leads a Marxist-inspired party that glorifies Fidel Castro, can win office is provoking a business class that has prospered as Peru’s pro-trade economy has grown. for much of the last two decades. Leading investors include the subsidiaries of Anglo American PLC, Newmont Mining Corp. of Denver and Aluminum Corporation of China.
“We are often told that only political scientists, constitutionalists, scholarly politicians and those with high degrees can govern a country,” Castillo recently told supporters. “They’ve had enough time.”
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, he said he sees these elections as a “competition between rich and poor … I see a fight between the boss and the worker, the master and the slave.”