An Ipsos Peru voter simulation released over the weekend suggests that Peruvian socialist presidential candidate Pedro Castillo and right-wing rival Keiko Fujimori are neck and neck just three weeks before the presidential runoff.
The poll, in which respondents fill out mock voter forms and place them in boxes to preserve their privacy, showed Castillo had 51.1% support, while Fujimori had 48.9%. The margin of error for the survey was 2.8%.
Castillo was until recently the clear front-runner to win the second round of the presidential election on June 6. He is a political newcomer who has caused market jitters by pledging to rewrite Peru’s constitution and nationalize mineral resources, but has since sought to soften his stance to appeal more to the political center.
Fujimori, the daughter of imprisoned former President Alberto Fujimori, has steadily chipped away at Castillo’s support and has polled stronger in the cities, while he leads in the country’s interior, from where he hails.
In a document outlining plans for his first 100 days in office, Castillo said he would raise taxes and royalties on Peru’s key mining sector and renegotiate the tax contracts of large companies. The increased revenue would then be used to substantially increase investment in education and health. Castillo has justified his plan to up taxes, saying copper production costs in Peru — the world’s second-largest producer of the red metal — are “the lowest in the world” while prices are at record highs.
Fujimori has also pledged to distribute Peru’s mineral wealth more evenly.
Another poll released on Sunday by the Peruvian Studies Institute (IEP) for the newspaper La República showed that Castillo led Fujimori in voting intentions by 36.5% to 29.6%. That survey had a margin of error of 2.8 points.
Market Pulse: Fujimori’s contract in the 2021 Peruvian presidential election market rose 6¢ on Tuesday and moved her nearer to the 50¢ barrier. She is up 27¢ since hitting a 30-day low on April 25. Castillo, meanwhile, is going the other direction, losing 22¢ over the same period. He leads Fujimori 55¢ to 45¢ at 6 a.m. EDT this morning.
Something to keep an eye on is the margin of victory market which finds the top two contracts — Castillo by 5% or more and Fujimori by 5% or more — at opposite ends of the bracket spectrum. Though, Castillo’s top contract is priced nearly double that of Fujimori’s at 32¢ to 15¢ entering trading today.
