World Tour: Peru’s reset button

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: World Tour.

This week in Peru, votes are being counted to find out Peruvians’ ninth president in ten years.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Two candidates competed in the runoff election… both promising solutions to violence and poverty in the country.

WORLD’s Mary Muncy reports.

MARY MUNCY: Over the past year, gangs have been killing Peruvian transportation workers who refuse to pay for ‘protection.’

SOUND: [Peru protest]

Last fall, those workers held strikes and protests that ended in police violence and Congress impeaching their second president of that year.

They held elections last weekend to determine a replacement, but it’s coming down to just a few percentage points, so counting the votes could take anywhere from a few days to a month.

ROBERTO SANCHEZ: [Spanish] We're almost there, we're almost there -- to achieve a resounding social majority that will restore faith in our Peru, restore faith in our homeland, and restore our sense of Peruvian identity. We must put a stop to corruption.

That’s candidate Roberto Sanchez telling supporters after the vote that they’re close to securing a majority that would restore faith in the country and end corruption.

He’s with the Together for Peru party—a liberal party that promotes socialist policies. 

One of the biggest issues for Peruvians is stopping violent crime. Sanchez’s solution involves joint police and military operations.

KEIKO FUJIMORI: [Spanish] The first thing we’re going to do is restore order… we’ll stand our ground to defeat crime.

The other candidate is Keiko Fujimori. She has her own security proposals, saying the first thing she’ll do is restore order and defeat crime. She’s the daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori. He served from 1990 to 2000 and then spent 16 years in prison for crimes against humanity.

FUJIMORI: [Spanish] We will also amend the criminal code so that the impunity we currently face is over, but also so that inmates have to work for their food.

She wants harsher punishments, and prisoners to work for their food. Her father used the same tactics.

But no matter who wins, the real challenge will be staying in office.

CYNTHIA MCCLINTOCK: Impeachment is very easy in Peru—impeachment as removal of the president.

George Washington University’s Cynthia McClintock.

MCCLINTOCK: The only ground is a very vague one of, quote, “permanent moral incapacity.”

McClintock says Peruvian politicians frequently resort to lawfare to get what they want in Congress. Meaning often the President is guilty or complicit in some sort of corruption, but everyone else is too, and Congress decides when it’s no longer acceptable.

The President’s term is supposed to be five years long, but over the past ten years, no President has lasted longer than two.

She says the short tenures exacerbate violence.

MCCLINTOCK: When the presidents have short terms, the new president brings in a new team. And that new team will often include new people, you know, at the interior ministry, which is primarily responsible for the, for the crime problem.

Meanwhile, on the international stage, China is increasing its investments in the country. Particularly, the Chancay Port. That’s a deep-water port north of Peru’s capital.

China has invested over a billion dollars into it and hails it as the “gateway” between China and South America.

MCCLINTOCK: The port is going to increase their trade with you know, Ecuador, Colombia, Chile, that it's going to put Peru on the map as the site for which trade from other Latin American countries, trade from Brazil, gets to China.

Peru is also a major exporter of copper, controlling 10% of the world’s supply. Those two factors mean Washington wants the winner to work with them. 

But McClintock says Peruvian voters are much more concerned about the country’s violence than geopolitics. She was in Peru in November and says upper-class neighborhoods in cities are generally safe, but lower-income Peruvians are feeling the brunt of unstable politics.

MCCLINTOCK: My sense is that everybody walking in those neighborhoods nowadays feels very safe. So it can be done...

That’s this week’s World Tour. I’m Mary Muncy.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.