LIMA: Polls opened in Peru´s presidential and legislative elections on Sunday, with crime and instability dominating a crowded race to choose the country´s ninth leader in a decade.
From the Amazon to the Andes, about 27 million Peruvians are obliged to vote. The presidential field includes 35 candidates, among them a comedian, a media baron, an autocrat´s daughter, and a hard line ex?mayor who likens himself to a cartoon pig.
The ballot paper itself is almost half a meter long.
Conservative candidates led pre?election polls, suggesting Peru may be the latest nation to welcome a tide of right?wing governments sweeping Latin America. The frontrunners have tried to outdo each other with promises to kill hitmen, hunt migrants and lock up delinquents in snake ringed jungle jails.
On the eve of the vote, frontrunner Keiko Fujimori told AFP she would “restore order” in her first 100 days: sending the army into jails, deporting illegal migrants and strengthening the border.
In the last decade, Peru´s homicide rate has more than doubled. Reported extortion cases jumped more than eightfold, from 3,200 to 26,500 a year. But many voters say they are also fed up with the political class, and with scandals and backstabbing that have seen a string of presidents removed and prosecuted.
