A hemisphere away

Five elderly women perched on a park bench outside George Mason High School and Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School in Falls Church on Sunday, talking excitedly, voting identification cards in hand. Behind them, a crowd steadily filed toward the door labeled "Puerta E." They were only a fraction of the 28,000 Peruvian nationals invited to vote long-distance in their country's presidential election.

Peruvians nationals from all over the East Coast gathered, traveling from as far as West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware.

Traffic was congested for miles in each direction, with fender-benders clogging several intersections. As parents pushed strollers up the streets from blocks away, Peruvian teens gathered in nearby parking lots, joking in streams of Spanish and English.

"People have responded positively," said Maria Chiozza, Deputy Consul-General of Peru in Washington DC. Chiozza said that they had set up 140 voting tables, and had already seen thousands of voters walk in by 2 p.m. Voting was expected to end at 4 p.m.

"It's been hectic, it's been crazy," said Alexandra Vargas, a college student who moved to America from Lima, Peru five years ago. Currently a Maryland resident, she visits Peru often and hopes to live there in the future.

"I'm just trying to make the right choice for Peru to progress, to develop," she said. "I am voting for the best candidate, who can lead us toward a better future."

As of Sunday morning, five candidates were in the running for Peru's presidential office. When voting concluded at the end of the day, unofficial results from the Associated Press purported that the race has narrowed to three polarizing candidates.

Keiko Fujimuri, daughter of the former president, Alberto Fujimuri, is one of the leading contenders. Although her father is now in prison for corruption and human rights abuses, the younger Fujimuri has received a following in Peru championing her father's policies of populism and advocating free market principles.

A candidate from the other end of the spectrum, Ollanta Humala, has many Peruvians worried for the future of democracy in their country. The nominee of a political party that promotes ethnic-based nationalism and communist economic principles, Humala is known for leading a militant uprising in 2000 against then-president Fujimuri.

The third notable contender, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, is a Peruvian economist and Oxford graduate. While his campaign promises include clean drinking water to all peoples of Peru, he is still widely considered an outsider due to his German ethnicity.

With presidential hopefuls of such varied political positions, many view this as an election of particularly high stakes. Even a hemisphere away, Peruvian nationals are watching polls with baited breath.

Graciella Chirinos is a retired nurse who has lived in the United States for the past 40 years. For her, the enthusiasm generated for this election is reminiscent of JFK's election, especially amongst the youth. "Right now, Peru has a very good position financially and economically, but we don't want to go back," Chirinos said.

The economic situation, although stable and favorable towards progress, still needs to "trickle down to those who are less fortunate," she said. She fears, however, that the election of leftist Humala could prove disastrous.

"People are here to say, 'No, we don't want that,'" Chirinos said. "We elect a person who's going to support true democracy."

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