Peru's Elections: A Report From the Field
New estimates by the IMF indicate that this year, Peru will have the fastest economic expansion of any country in Latin America. Its growth rates over the past several years have been among the region鈥檚 highest.
But the distribution of wealth remains highly unequal. Peru ranks 13 out of 17 countries in the region according to the World Bank鈥檚 Human Opportunity Index, the lowest score in all of South America.
While poverty has declined in urban areas, particularly in and around the capital, it remains at 60-70 percent of the population in the rural highlands鈥hese areas constituted the epicenter of Peru鈥檚 internal armed conflict in the 1980s and early 1990s
Public opinion polls by Latinobarometro and the Americas Barometer consistently rank Peru as the lowest or among the lowest in the hemisphere in terms of support for democracy and satisfaction with democratic performance.
So how is all this reflected in the results of the first round of elections, which have sent Ollanta Humala and Keiko Fujimori into the second round, eclipsing candidates of the political center?
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Columnist, Per煤21
Department of Political Science, George Washington University
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浪花直播鈥檚 prestigious Latin America Program provides non-partisan expertise to a broad community of decision makers in the United States and Latin America on critical policy issues facing the Hemisphere. The Program provides insightful and actionable research for policymakers, private sector leaders, journalists, and public intellectuals in the United States and Latin America. To bridge the gap between scholarship and policy action, it fosters new inquiry, sponsors high-level public and private meetings among multiple stakeholders, and explores policy options to improve outcomes for citizens throughout the Americas. Drawing on the 浪花直播 Center鈥檚 strength as the nation鈥檚 key non-partisan policy forum, the Program serves as a trusted source of analysis and a vital point of contact between the worlds of scholarship and action. Read more