Latin Analysis: South America’s Super Electoral Sunday
Anadolu Agency
Three countries in the Andean subregion of Latin America held much-anticipated elections on Sunday, April 11th. Peru and Ecuador each held their respective general elections, while neighboring landlocked country Bolivia held gubernatorial elections for four of their seven departments. While each of these countries' elections has different political contexts in which they occurred, all three have recently struggled with great political instability and social unrest. Along with Chile’s upcoming presidential election in November, the political dynamic of these Andean nations, and in effect the entire South American continent, will change in lieu of the pandemic and the mass protests of late 2019 that rocked much of South America.
Peru’s First Round
For the past six months, Peruvian politics has been experiencing fallout from President Martín Vizcarra’s impeachment in November 2020 after being deemed “morally incompetent” by congress. What followed was a very short stint by congress’s president, Manuel Merino in office. Less than a week later, Fransisco Sagasti, an academic became interim president, promising to preside in office until the April 11th election.
The election in Peru has been widely reported as one of the most fragmented elections in recent history. Even with 18 candidates on the ballot, no one seemed to take a substantial lead. Indeed, not one candidate was able to score a percentage of the vote that landed over 20%, let alone the 50% that was required to win the first round. The two politicians that will be going to the second round are Pedro Castillo and Keiko Fujimori. Castillo is a former elementary school teacher and union activist whose career in politics has been widely unknown up to this point. He is a part of the Free Peru National political party, a relatively new socialist party that has currently had no presence in congress, and very little representation in gubernatorial and local offices. Despite Castillo and his party being unknown to many Peruvians, he took the lead in the first round. He garnered 19% of the vote in the first round, and is currently polling around 42%.
Keiko Fujimori is the daughter of infamous former president Alberto Fujimori, who governed Peru from 1990-2000. Her platform is very similar to her father’s, conservative and neoliberally focused, with Fujimorismo- the cult of personality her father and their family have- added in. After her parent’s divorce in 1994, Keiko officially became the first lady of Peru, accompanying her father with formal government events. Despite some great successes with the economy and defeat of the guerilla warfare group the Shining Path, Alberto Fujimori’s presidency was wracked with human rights abuses and corruption. In 2000 he was removed from office, and in 2009 he was formally charged with human rights violations such as murder and kidnapping, as well as embezzlement for separate corruption charges. He remains in prison to this day.
While her father’s career remains incredibly decisive among Peruvians, Keiko’s political career has remained prolific. She was a congresswoman representing Lima from 2006-2011, and she founded the right-wing political party La Fuerza Popular (Popular Force), which held a congressional majority in 2016. This is Keiko’s third time running for president, previously going to the second round in both the 2011 and 2016 presidential elections and narrowly losing in 2016 to Vizcarra. She garnered 13% of the vote in the first round, and remains in second place against Castillo, currently polling at 31%. June 6th will be the presidential runoff against Castillo and Fujimori, where the future of the country will either be governed by politicians who are on opposite ends of the political spectrum.
Ecuador’s Runoff
Ecuador’s April 11th runoff election declared conservative banker Guillermo Lasso its new president. This was Lasso’s third time running for president under the center-right Creating Opportunities party. Lasso’s win symbolizes a break from the legacy of Correismo, the political platform of former president Rafael Correa, who governed from 2007-2017. Correismo has divided the country politically, as its philosophy was characterized by government-led development and social welfare programs funded by commodities exports, much like that of other Pink Tide socialist governments of the time. While slashing poverty during his presidency with this model, Correa’s time in office was also marked with attempts to unconstitutionally stay in power, riding the line between democracy and authoritarianism. In 2017, Correa’s vice president Lenín Moreno won the presidency after the people of Ecuador voted for term limits to stay in place. While Moreno was ticketed on the ballot as a democratic socialist, once in office he moved away from certain aspects of Correismo, utilizing a neoliberal model instead for the economy.
Correismo was still prevalent in the 2021 election. The second round brought Guillermo Lasso head-to-head with Andrés Arauz, a former minister in Correa’s government who was endorsed by Correa. Aruaz’s entire platform was one that sought to return Correismo to the country after Lasso moved away from it. The polls initially signaled a lead for Arauz, but in the end, the country decided to move beyond Correismo, electing Lasso with 52.4% of the vote.
Bolivia’s Departmental Elections
For the past year and a half, Bolivia’s political system has been experiencing great instability after former president Evo Morales was suddenly ousted in November 2019. Another “strongman” politician with a cult of personality attached to him, Morales was president for 13 years from 2006-2019. Leader of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) party, Morales’s pro-indigenous and socialist platform greatly slashed poverty for South America’s poorest and most indigenous state. However, like other pink tide politicians of the time like Hugo Chavez and Rafael Correa, Morales held authoritarian ambitions. Immediately following a fourth term reelection win, Morales was forced to resign by the police and military after evidence of electoral fraud was reported. Opposition senator Jeanine Áñez assumed the role of president with much controversy, but congress later annulled the results of the election barring Morales from running again in the future. However, while Morales is no longer the president, he is still the leader and the face of MAS.
A year later, the October 2020 general election saw Luis Arce of MAS elected as president, symbolizing the continuing popularity of the party. However, this year on the regional ballot saw MAS lose some very important subnational positions. Gubernatorial elections for Bolivia’s 9 departments in early March saw mixed results for MAS as the party won 3 departments and lost 2 in the first round, while four departments went to a runoff. On April 11th, the four runoff gubernatorial elections surprisingly saw MAS lose all four tickets for governor, losing the lucrative departments of La Paz and Tarija, as well as Pando and Chuquisaca. MAS now only holds 3 governors positions, with opposition forces now holding the majority over the other six departments.
South America’s super Sunday resulted in much surprise for voters and international onlookers. A largely unknown politician is currently polling in first place against one of Peru’s most famous politicians. The prospect of bringing back Correismo has been lost in Ecuador. And the most popular political party in Bolivia is now losing stamina subnationally. These elections symbolize the political status quo is upended, which in the end can only be good for democracy in the region.
