Some 30,000 Peruvians went to the polls on 4 October to vote in the first-ever national primaries to choose a presidential candidate. The election was open to all voters irrespective of whether they were members of the Frente Amplio or, indeed, registered with any other political movement. Although the elections were not official and were not organised as such by the ONPE, the state entity that runs elections in Peru, they amplified the feeling that primaries provide a new way of doing politics.

Electoral law in Peru mandates that candidates can only run for parties registered by the ONPE. To obtain this they have to have garnered a minimum of 5% of the vote in the previous election. The only organisation in the Frente Amplio to meet this requirement was Tierra y Libertad, the movement led by environmental campaigner and ex-cleric Marco Arana. Many commentators expressed the view that, because of this position of strength he wanted to hold the election just to legitimate his position as would-be candidate and that he would never willingly relinquish this possibility.

Of the several candidates competing in the primary, only one mounted a credible challenge to Arana: Verónika Mendoza, a member of Congress for Cuzco. She had made a name for herself campaigning against large mining concerns like Tintaya (in Cuzco). She was also among the first to resign from the Partido Nacionalista (PNP), the party for which was elected to Congress in 2011. At only 35, some had written Mendoza off for being too young and inexperienced, not to mention her sex. But she has repeatedly surprised her critics by showing both charisma and resilience. In the short primary campaign, she revealed that she had the required mass appeal to make her a viable candidate.

The elections brought a high turnout in places where voting was held. They also produced a close result. While Mendoza was the unquestionable front-runner in Lima, Cuzco and other cities, Arana was the most popular candidate in the north.

In the district of Pomalca, Lambayeque, controversy emerged that raised questions about the final result. In this large sugar producing estate electors had seemingly voted overwhelmingly for Arana, but accusations soon emerged that a local political broker, Giovana Constantini, had filled the voting registers with the names of workers from the Pomalca estate and then had presented them as having all voted for Arana. Voting at three polling booths (mesas) was, it emerged, unquestionably tainted. Had all the votes from the eleven booths been included in the final tally, Arana would have won; if only the eight that were not questioned, Mendoza would have done so.

Tensions mounted as negotiations continued over the next couple of days. Four days after the vote, Arana finally tweeted congratulating Mendoza on her victory. While the primaries were hailed as a showcase of democratic practice, with Mendoza holding her nerve and Arana showing a desire for compromise, the fragility of the system was exposed in the difficulty of controlling the activities of local political operators, like Contantini, on whom the responsibility of holding the primary fell.

As candidate for the Frente Amplio, Mendoza will need to show that she can mount a national campaign and occupy the political space on the left that still seems to be up for grabs, with most other leading candidates being on the right (see above). She will need to show, too, that she can reach agreements with other fractions on the left and mount a unified campaign. But what this primary election has shown is that presidential candidates need to be selected on the basis of proven support, not just handpicked by the party leadership. Even APRA has learnt something from this. As we went to press on 18 October, APRA was holding a primary of its own… although in its case there was only one candidate, Alan García.