Peru’s leftist presidential candidate Pedro Castillo has 41.5% support compared with 21.5% for market-friendly contender Keiko Fujimori, according to a poll by Instituto de Estudios Peruanos published in the daily La Republica.
As the presidential run-off vote set for June 6 approaches, the poll shows Castillo apparently widening his lead over Fujimori, the polarizing daughter of a failed former president.
Castillo’s lead after the first-round election on April 11 has spooked investors in Peru, pushing them to sell stocks and sovereign bonds. The sol sank to a record on Friday while the benchmark stock index dropped a five-month low, with both becoming the worst performing stock market and currency globally in the past week, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The poll suggests that Peru’s economic model is at the center of this election. More than half of those who intend to vote for Castillo, a former school teacher, say they agree with totally changing the economic system, while 25.4% of those favoring former president Alberto Fujimori’s daughter say they don’t want any economic changes.
The poll shows that 21.2% of people said they would vote blank, and 13.5% were undecided. The findings were based on telephone interviews with 1,367 people April 17-21 nationwide. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.65 points.
