It is incredible that with all the conditions existing for two options from the right or center-right to advance to the second round, there is now the possibility of repeating something similar to the 2021 scenario. Evo Morales is not campaigning in the south, the “Bolivian model” has collapsed, the economy is now much better and the acute problem is rather insecurity, all of which should favor a right-wing option. Society itself has moved to the right, according to a study by Carlos Meléndez based on ideological self-identification surveys carried out in 2021 and 2026.
It is incredible that with all the conditions existing for two options from the right or center-right to advance to the second round, there is now the possibility of repeating something similar to the 2021 scenario. Evo Morales is not campaigning in the south, the “Bolivian model” has collapsed, the economy is now much better and the acute problem is rather insecurity, all of which should favor a right-wing option. Society itself has moved to the right, according to a study by Carlos Meléndez based on ideological self-identification surveys carried out in 2021 and 2026.
That the country may not take advantage of its own movement to the right to grow again at high rates and defeat crime is a consequence, among other things, of the excessive fragmentation of the electoral offer in general and of the right in particular. The 2019 reform allowed the registration of parties with only 24 thousand signatures, but there was a filter so that after the mandatory primaries (PASO) only a few parties went to the general election. Congress repealed PASO, but did not put any filter. We were left with more than 40 parties and 36 presidential candidates, increasing people’s feeling of anomie and rejection of politicians and politics, a rejection aggravated by a massive negative campaign (#ForThisNo) orchestrated by the same people who polarized and fueled the discredit of the political class by applauding the dissolution of Congress by Vizcarra and the political persecution carried out by the Lava Jato team.
So in that self-generated wasteland an option emerges from the world of entertainment and communications like Belmont, pregnant with a lethal underhanded leftism. It’s the lottery. There is also responsibility on the right, which was not able to unite at the time and now some speak of a strategic vote in favor of Álvarez and others of consolidating the vote for Keiko.
These next five years are the opportunity to once again take the great leap in growth and development, if we recover political stability by putting an end to the anarchic cycle of vacancies, resignations and congressional dissolutions and make the structural reforms that must be made. With the international prices of minerals, even higher than those that Alan García had, we should be growing at the rates that García achieved, 8 or 9%, reducing poverty at a rate of four or more points per year. But that would only be achieved with stability and with structural reforms that would have to be approved by a Congress in which the reformist government has a majority, either on its own or by coalition.
Someone like Belmont would nullify all that potential. He presents himself as marginalized and persecuted by the system, he proposes returning to the 1979 Constitution, “reviewing and renegotiating contracts on natural resources,” criticizing free trade agreements and defending Velasco protectionism. The recipe for collective impoverishment, which we already suffer and do not learn.
I hope God enlightens us tomorrow. We cannot keep falling into the same pit over and over again, with a bright future ahead of us.
*El Comercio opens its pages to the exchange of ideas and reflections. In this plural framework, the Diario does not necessarily agree with the opinions of the columnists who sign them, although it always respects them.
