Lima: Peru’s Keiko Fujimori-led opposition suffered a crushing blow at legislative elections, losing dozens of seats in the Congress it had dominated since 2016, according to early results.
According to a rapid count by the Ipsos research firm, Fujimori’s Popular Force party’s share of the vote has dropped from 36.3 per cent in 2016 to just 6.9 per cent. Having dominated Congress with 73 of the 130 seats, it is now set to be only the sixth largest party with less than 20 seats, according to projections.
“It’s the collapse of Fujimorism, it’s a very deep fall, a very hard blow,” analyst Luis Benavente, director of the Vox Populi consultancy, told AFP. “We don’t know how many legislators they will have, but the first projections indicate it will be a 10th of their 2016′ result”, added analyst Fernando Rospigliosi.
It’s a big victory for center-right President Martin Vizcarra, who dissolved parliament in September and called snap legislative elections in a bid to end a political crisis between the executive and Congress. The elections have produced a hung parliament dominated by centrist parties more likely to approve of Vizcarra’s anti-corruption reforms previously blocked by Popular Force. The largest single party is set to be the centrist Popular Action with 10.1 per cent of the vote, according to Ipsos.
After the Christian fundamentalist party Frepap (8.8) come the right-wing Podemos Peru (8.25), center-right Progress Alliance (8.0) and the centrist Partido Morado (7.7). Vizcarra said he wants to establish with the new Congress “a responsible, mature relationship that seeks a consensus that benefits Peru.”
Fujimori’s Popular Force looks to have paid for its leader’s implication in the sprawling Odebrecht corruption scandal. Fujimori is accused of accepting $1.2 million in illicit party funding from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht for her unsuccessful 2011 presidential election campaign.