His government would never seek to remove women's reproductive organs
Em um país que atravessou quatro presidentes em três anos e perdeu mais de 185 mil vidas para a pandemia, os peruanos foram às urnas no domingo em busca de uma direção — e encontraram um espelho. As pesquisas de saída mostraram Pedro Castillo e Keiko Fujimori separados por apenas 0,6 ponto percentual, uma diferença absorvida pela margem de erro estatístico, como se a própria nação estivesse dividida ao meio entre dois projetos de país irreconciliáveis. O resultado oficial da ONPE ainda está por vir, mas a tensão já transborda das sedes partidárias para as ruas, onde a memória de golpes, esterilizações forçadas e instabilidade institucional pesa sobre cada voto contado.
- Uma vantagem de vinte pontos que Castillo acumulou após o primeiro turno evaporou semana a semana, até que as urnas revelaram um empate técnico que nenhuma pesquisa havia previsto com tanta nitidez.
- Apoiadores de Castillo reunidos na sede do Peru Libre já gritavam fraude antes mesmo de os resultados oficiais começarem a ser apurados, enquanto o partido pedia calma e mobilização simultâneas.
- A disputa carrega o peso de feridas históricas abertas: o regime de Alberto Fujimori esterilizou à força mais de 300 mil mulheres e 25 mil homens, uma herança que Keiko chama de planejamento familiar e Castillo repudia como crime.
- Com 24 milhões de eleitores elegíveis, votação escalonada por causa da pandemia e mais de 185 mil mortos pela COVID-19 como pano de fundo, o processo transcorreu sem incidentes graves — mas a legitimidade do resultado já é contestada antes de ser proclamada.
- A ONPE, autoridade eleitoral peruana, é agora o único árbitro reconhecido de um país que, nos últimos três anos, consumiu quatro presidentes e ainda busca um chão firme.
O segundo turno presidencial peruano terminou no domingo com um resultado que desafiou qualquer previsão confortável. As pesquisas de saída do Instituto Ipsos e da América TV apontaram Keiko Fujimori com 50,3% contra 49,7% de Pedro Castillo — uma diferença de 0,6 ponto percentual, inteiramente dentro da margem de erro de três pontos. O que parecia uma vantagem consolidada de Castillo, que chegou a liderar por vinte pontos após o primeiro turno em abril, havia se dissolvido nas semanas finais da campanha.
Do lado de Castillo, a reação foi imediata: apoiadores se concentraram na sede do Peru Libre acusando fraude, enquanto o partido publicava no Twitter pedindo vigilância e aguardando os dados oficiais da ONPE. Castillo, professor e líder sindical de 51 anos que ganhou projeção nacional ao conduzir uma greve de professores em 2017, construiu sua candidatura em torno de uma assembleia constituinte e da crítica à constituição de 1993 — redigida sob a ditadura de Alberto Fujimori e, segundo ele, estruturada para proteger o lucro privado em detrimento do bem comum.
Fujimori, por sua vez, avançou ao segundo turno com 13,4% e apostou na defesa da estabilidade e do legado paterno. No único debate entre os dois, quando ela acusou Castillo de negligenciar as mulheres, ele respondeu evocando as esterilizações forçadas realizadas pelo governo de seu pai — um programa que atingiu mais de 300 mil mulheres e 25 mil homens, majoritariamente de comunidades rurais e indígenas. Fujimori classifica o episódio como planejamento familiar; Castillo o repudia como violação irreparável.
O contexto agrava a tensão: o Peru trocou quatro presidentes em três anos, registrou quase dois milhões de casos de COVID-19 e mais de 185 mil mortes, e realizou a votação com horários escalonados para evitar aglomerações. Cerca de 24 milhões de eleitores foram convocados a escolher entre dois projetos de nação que mal cabem no mesmo país. Os resultados oficiais da ONPE dirão qual deles prevalece — mas a fratura já está exposta, independentemente do placar final.
Peru's presidential runoff election on Sunday came down to a razor's edge. Exit polling released by the Ipsos Institute and América TV showed Keiko Fujimori with 50.3 percent of the vote against Pedro Castillo's 49.7 percent—a gap of just 0.6 percentage points. With a margin of error of three points in either direction, the race was statistically tied.
The tightness of the result stunned observers who had watched Castillo's lead evaporate over the preceding weeks. In the immediate aftermath of the first-round voting in April, when Castillo secured 18.92 percent to advance to this runoff, early polls showed him ahead of Fujimori by as much as twenty points. The final surveys before Sunday's vote still favored him, but only narrowly—51.1 percent to 48.9 percent. Now, with exit polls suggesting the race had swung further, Castillo's supporters gathered outside Peru Libre party headquarters and began shouting accusations of fraud. The party itself called for calm while urging vigilance, posting on Twitter that they awaited results from Peru's electoral authority, the ONPE, and asked citizens to remain mobilized against any attempt to subvert the popular will.
About 24 million Peruvians were eligible to vote. Polls closed at 7 p.m. local time, and voting proceeded without major incident across the country, according to the ONPE. Because of the pandemic, authorities staggered voting hours to prevent crowding at polling stations, with elderly voters assigned specific time slots. The ONPE asked all voters to wear two masks. Peru has recorded nearly two million confirmed COVID-19 cases and over 185,000 deaths since the pandemic began, though authorities had administered more than four million vaccine doses.
Castillo, a 51-year-old educator and union organizer, rose to national prominence in 2017 when he led a strike by Peru's teachers. He wears the distinctive hat of the rural patrol groups, or rondas campesinas, that he belonged to as a younger man—organizations that policed crime in Peru's countryside. His campaign centered on popular participation and the convening of a constitutional assembly. Castillo's party identifies as Marxist-Leninist-Mariateguist and argues that Peru's current constitution, adopted in 1993 during Alberto Fujimori's dictatorship, prioritizes private profit over public good and human dignity. He has called for Peruvians to decide democratically whether they want a new constitution.
Fujimori, who advanced from the first round with 13.4 percent of the vote, has built her campaign on her father's legacy and the promise of stability. She opposes constitutional change and defends the existing state structure. During the only debate between the two candidates, the discussion centered on pandemic response and the management of health and education. When Fujimori accused Castillo of ignoring women's issues, he responded by pointing to the forced sterilizations carried out under her father's government—a program that, by most estimates, affected more than 300,000 women and 25,000 men, predominantly from rural and indigenous communities, without their consent. Fujimori has characterized these sterilizations as family planning. Castillo has explicitly repudiated the practice, declaring in April that his government would never seek to remove women's reproductive organs.
Peru has cycled through four presidents in three years, a period of profound instability. Pedro Pablo Kuczynski was removed in 2018. His vice president, Martín Vizcarra, was ousted in late 2020. Manuel Merino took over but resigned after a week. Francisco Sagasti has led a caretaker government and did not run in this election. The country's political turbulence and the pandemic's devastating toll have created an electorate searching for direction. The official results from the ONPE will determine which vision prevails—and whether the exit polls' near-perfect split holds when all ballots are counted.
Citações Notáveis
We invoke the people to remain vigilant and mobilized against any attempt to defraud the will of the people— Peru Libre party statement on Twitter
In his government, they will not find a government that wants to remove the uterus of mothers and Peruvian women— Pedro Castillo, April 24, 2021
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why did Castillo's lead collapse so dramatically between the first round and the runoff?
The dynamics shifted once the field narrowed to two. In April, eighteen candidates split the vote; Castillo won with less than nineteen percent. When it became a binary choice between a leftist calling for constitutional change and Fujimori representing continuity, voters who had been scattered across the middle began consolidating—many toward Fujimori, who represented the safer choice.
The exit polls show a technical tie. What does that actually mean for what happens next?
It means nobody knows. The margin of error is three points. Castillo could be ahead by two points, or Fujimori could be ahead by two. The official count will tell the real story, but in the meantime, Castillo's supporters are already bracing for the possibility that the result they expected didn't materialize.
Why are his supporters immediately crying fraud?
Because they watched his lead disappear in real time. They saw polls showing him ahead by twenty points, then five, then essentially tied. To them, that trajectory doesn't feel like natural voter movement—it feels like something was taken from them. Whether that's accurate or not, the suspicion is already baked in.
What's the forced sterilization issue really about in this campaign?
It's about whether Fujimori can escape her father's record or whether she's bound to it. She's defended those sterilizations as family planning. Castillo is saying: your father did this to hundreds of thousands of women, and you're defending it. It's the deepest wound in Peruvian politics, and it's still open.
If Castillo wins, what does he actually want to do?
He wants to rewrite the constitution. He believes the current one, written during the Fujimori dictatorship, is designed to protect wealth and private interests over human dignity. He wants Peruvians to vote on whether they want a new one. That's radical to people who see the constitution as settled law. It's necessary to people who see it as a relic of authoritarianism.
And if Fujimori wins?
Things stay as they are. The constitution stands. The state structure remains. She's offering continuity in a country that's been in chaos—four presidents in three years. For some voters, that's exactly what they need. For others, it means accepting a system they believe is fundamentally unjust.