In polarizing election, Peru hears echoes of the past
Peruvian voters face a stark choice when they cast their ballots in the June 6 presidential runoff between a left-wing rural school teacher and the daughter of a right-wing imprisoned president. Analysts worry the sharp divisions emerging in this neck-and-neck campaign could spell a bumpy road ahead for Peru, regardless of the victor.
The campaign has dredged up the country’s troubled history of corruption, inequality, and terrorism, creating an eery feeling of déjà vu from one of Peru’s most turbulent modern periods. That sense of unease has been supercharged by the pandemic, which has exposed government failures to improve social services, despite two decades of economic growth.
Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, Peru suffered both guerrilla warfare and government-backed human rights abuses, in attempts to
In-and-out presidentsMore political battles ahead?
