Peruvian Presidential & Congressional elections - April, 10th 2011

The general elections that occured on Sunday April 10th decided the Peruvian Political Leadership for the next 6 years.  All the congressmen voted in will stay, however, regarding the Presidential elections there will be a second round in August.  They do not have primaries in Peru and they have a thriving pluralist system so the fight for the presidency was really between 5 primary candidates although there were many more.

There was one socialist - left leaning former Soldier who was supported by both Hugo Chavez from and Evo Morales - Ollanta with over 30% of the vote.
Then there is Keiko with about 23% of the vote - daughter of former president who is currently in jail indefinitely on corruption charges.  I guess the equivalent would be if Chealsey Clinton ran for the Presidency.
Then there were the three amigos - 3 x moderate to conservative candidates that really could have one the presidency outright with 51% of the vote if they decided to support each other.  As it was, they all pretty much split the same voters and none of them are going to the second round.  Among the three amigos are Castaneda with 5% of the vote, former mayor of lima and responsible for the Metropolitano, Toledo with 15% of the vote, former shoe shine boy who came to the U.S. to study at Stanford and Harvard - he's an economist by trade and also a former Peruvian president, then there is PPK with around 20% of the vote, businessman and economist with dual citizenship in both Peru & the U.S. that may have been a strike against him with the average Peruvian.

In the end Ollanta won by a large margin, followed by Keiko  so they will advance to the second round of voting in June.

The topic everyone is talking about is the obligatory voting and how that has catapulted Ollanta.  Most peruvians are of lower socioeconomic status and are voting for Ollanta because he wants to even the playing field at all costs.  Keiko also receives a lot of support from the outlying provinces as well as poorer districts around Lima.  If the three amigos would have united, one of them would have easily advanced to the second round which is what most educated Peruvians wanted.  They are afraid the economy will tank and foreign investment will drop with Ollanta as President.  They are also afraid that he will try to make Peru a dictatorship ala Hugo Chavez.  It's been an interesting weekend and monday morning around the water cooler ;)

BUT, experiencing the actual voting was the best of all....pictures speak a thousand words so check out the pictures below with the brief synopsis....

People finding out where their assigned voting posts are located

 Voting age is 18 - 70 and it is obligatory - those who do not vote are fined 180 Soles or about $60USD which is a lot of money for your average Peruvian.  Anyone older than 70 has an option to vote or not to vote, that is the question.  There are tables manned by people all over the city so they can find their assigned voting locations.

Rosa heading to her assigned voting post

 Most people are assigned a voting post close to their home or where they grew up, so a lot of people go back home to visit family and make it a family event - it is obligatory afterall.  Rosa was kind enough to let me tag along and document the experience.  The surprising thing I found was all the security around and within every voting post - local police, national police, and the Peruvian Army were deployed to provide security, deter corruption and ensure a smooth voting process.  Military members and National Police in Peru are prohibited from voting.

The purple finger = proof of the vote

 The last thing everybody does to ensure one person - one vote is tag each voting card with the voter's fingerprint in purple ink.  I don't know if they cross reference them or not but it's pretty awesome watching 100's and 100's of people trying to clean-up their purple fingers!
p.s. - middle fingers in Peru don't have the same meaning as in the U.S. - everybody points with their middle fingers in latin america!

NO Ciclodia --> Closed for the Vote

 EVERYTHING is pretty much shut down for the vote, it is obligatory after-all.  Some shops are open and there are a TON of street vendors.  The streets were full of buses, cars and taxis shuttling tons of people to their voting posts.  As you can see on the side of the street, it is FULL of people lining up to vote.  Most polling sites were situated in Universities.

People lined up to take buses to their polling sites

 Lines of buses rotated at all the bus stops and lines of people would form only to get scooped up and taken to their voting station of choice.  Polls opened at 8:30am and closed at 4pm - traffic steadily increased throughout the day.

One of the bigger and busier polling sites

This polling site was a large University situated behind a park and it was by far one of the busiest voting locations I saw - there were a TON of people lined up, street vendors, families hanging out in the park after the vote - very festive.  Slightly different from the U.S. but a great experience!

Of course, all news-stations and newspapers covered the voting process and it was all everyone was talking about all day Monday morning.

Care to take a crack at your Spanish? Check out this website from El Comercio one of the bigger and better newspapers / reporting agencies in Peru - at least I think so.
Link below:
http://elcomercio.pe/elecciones/

Another busy week of observations, I need to pull it into 5th gear if I'm going to get it all done before I fly out to Cusco! More to follow...

Whoop!