Sánchez softens radical stance as Francke signals economic moderation for runoff

Roberto Sánchez has eighteen days to convince Peru he is not the radical he appeared to be. With the June 7 runoff against Keiko Fujimori looming, the leftist candidate's campaign is recalibrating—softening the edges of positions that animated his first-round push, reframing his economic vision through the measured voice of Pedro Francke, a former economy minister under Pedro Castillo who now sits on Sánchez's technical team.

Francke's assignment is delicate. He must walk back the disruption without abandoning the base. In interviews this week, he has insisted there will be no nationalizations, that private property will be respected, that contracts will be honored. He has pledged continuity at the Central Reserve Bank—keeping Julio Velarde in place—a striking reversal from Sánchez's earlier promise to remove the bank chief on his first day in office. He has denied that Antauro Humala, the imprisoned leader of a 2000 coup attempt whom Sánchez had positioned as his crime-fighting chief, will have any role in government. "If he entered, I would leave that same instant," Francke said, despite Sánchez's own words at an April rally naming Humala for exactly that post.

The economic team Francke describes is broad and technocratic: Oscar Dancourt, Gustavo Guerra-García, Katherine Eyzaguirre, and others. He has not ruled out taking the economy ministry himself, though he frames it as a question for later, contingent on building what he calls "a broad governing coalition that goes far beyond Juntos por el Perú." On the minimum wage—Sánchez proposed raising it to 1,500 soles this week—Francke called the move "perfectly viable," arguing that the base salary has fallen behind inflation and that the Central Bank's job is to manage that reality. Growth matters, he said, but it is not everything. The party supports private investment, technology, small business, agriculture. It will respect macroeconomic stability.

Yet the distance between these assurances and what Sánchez actually campaigned on is vast and visible. His formal government plan, filed with electoral authorities, calls for a "second agrarian reform," nationalization of Camisea gas, a "solidarity economy" as an alternative to capitalism, renegotiation of free trade agreements, gradual prohibition of unprocessed mineral exports, and a constitutional rewrite through a constituent assembly. During the first round, Sánchez built his candidacy on these planks. Now Francke is saying the people have spoken, the results demand coalition-building, and the program must adapt to political reality.

Former economy ministers are unconvinced. Luis Miguel Castilla, who held the post before Francke, called the pivot a political tactic aimed at voters afraid of disruption—an "anti-vote" strategy. He noted that even when Francke briefly ran the economy ministry under Castillo, the government did push through changes to the Central Bank's board, despite keeping Velarde. Castilla doubted Velarde would accept reappointment under Sánchez given the earlier attacks. "There is a double discourse," he said. "All these signals are made for the audience."

David Tuesta, another former economy minister, detected discomfort in the campaign itself. Francke, he suggested, is defending his own positions, not the party's platform. The real thinking of Sánchez and allies like Anahí Durand remains visible in their rallies: constitutional change, constituent assembly, contract nullification. "Juntos por el Perú has not renounced these postulates," Tuesta said. He pointed out that Francke himself praised Evo Morales's Bolivian economic model not long ago. The contrast between what Francke is saying now and what the party's official plan contains is stark. And it does not make Francke a guarantee of continuity.

With less than three weeks until voters decide, Sánchez's campaign is betting that a softer voice, a reassuring face, and promises of moderation can overcome the weight of what came before. Whether that bet succeeds depends on whether voters believe the pivot is real—or whether they see it, as Castilla does, as theater designed to win an election before the curtain falls.