Latin American Candidates Seek Divine Intervention
Politicians from left and right are embracing an evangelical agenda, sharpening divisions and encouraging the populist temptation.
Not-so-divine intervention.
Photographer: Miguel Schincariol/AFP via Getty Images
God help Peru. As if one of the world’s deadliest outbreaks of Covid-19 and a double-digit economic collapse weren’t punishment enough, now comes a presidential runoff where contenders from the ideological fringes propose to upend what’s left of this damaged Andean democracy.
Most Peruvians are properly aghast. Null and blank votes outnumbered the combined tally for first-round frontrunner Pedro Castillo, a self-styled Marxist with a 77-page agenda of socialist dirigisme, and his right-wing foil Keiko Fujimori, best known for her plan to pardon her father, a former dictator jailed for human rights violations. And yet for Peru’s emerging ultraconservative Christians, this election is an answered prayer: They win either way.