With a view to building a coalition capable of beating Keiko Fujimori in the second round on 6 June, Pedro Castillo signed a pact with Verónika Mendoza, the presidential candidate for Juntos por el Perú (JPP), on 5 May. He also set out ten “commitments” whose fulfilment would guide policy under a government led by him.

For most of the first-round campaign Mendoza was seen as the main standard-bearer of the left. However, widely perceived as an established politician and given her moves to reassure more centrist voters, she was overtaken by Castillo, a newcomer whose party, Perú Libre (PL), had a much more radical agenda.

The deal with Mendoza is entitled “political agreement for the refoundation of our fatherland”. It contains four objectives: to confront the socio-economic crisis arising from the Covid-19 pandemic, promoting universal vaccination; reactivation of the domestic economy by generating employment and leaving behind the neoliberal model inherited from the era of Fujimori’s father; the rooting out of corruption; and the refoundation of the state on the basis of democracy with guarantees of equal rights for all.

The critique of neoliberalism represented a key strand in JPP’s election manifesto, as did the importance of revising the 1993 constitution inherited from the era of Alberto Fujimori. Where PL’s views tend to differ from those of JPP are in area of civil rights, particularly gender and gay rights. On these matters, PL tended to adopt a highly conservative view.

In her statement explaining the pact, Mendoza made clear that “what is at issue is not just the victory of Professor Castillo, but we have an historic responsibility to put the brakes on authoritarianism, the mafia, to the past…”, a clear reference to the legacy of fujimorismo.

The importance of this alliance probably lies more in the contribution that Mendoza’s technical team could bring to the tasks of government than to longer-term parliamentary support, although this has yet to be discussed. JPP has but five seats in the forthcoming Congress which, though potentially valuable, are unlikely to sustain Castillo from an offensive from the right.

It remains unclear whether Castillo will command PL’s parliamentarians or rather Vladimir Cerrón from whom, it would seem, Castillo is seeking to distance himself. Mendoza’s endorsement of Castillo is no guarantee that all (or even most) of those who voted for her in the first round will support Castillo in the second.

Castillo’s ten commitments, pronounced immediately after the joint presentation of the agreement, covered similar ground but were rather more specific. They included promises to defeat Covid-19 and guarantee mass vaccination, to adopt public health policies based on scientific evidence, to convene a Constituent Assembly by observing exiting constitutional precepts, and not to seek re-election in 2026. They promised to push ahead with an anti-corruption drive, defend human rights, observe existing international treaties, obey decisions adopted by indigenous peoples, fight street and what Castillo called “white collar” delinquency, strengthen democracy, and fortify institutions such as the Constitutional Tribunal and the Ombudsman’s Office (Defensoría del Pueblo).

This agenda is clearly designed to mollify opinion alarmed by some of Castillo’s previous statements. It reneges on some of the more extreme and even authoritarian policies previously proffered. He had previously said, for instance, that he would get rid of the Constitutional Tribunal and the Defensoría and withdraw Peru from the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights. It also misses out explicit reference to the previously announced nationalisation of all extractive industries or even the rewriting of contracts with them.

Both critics and potential supporters will push him into defining more closely what this agenda would actually mean in policy terms over the coming days and weeks.

The text of the two documents can be found here.

The latest poll by Datum, published on 6 May, shows Castillo’s margin over Fujimori to have slipped further. Castillo has 41% of voting intentions and Fujimori 36%. Time will tell whether his agreement with Mendoza and JPP will help him widen the difference. According to the Datum poll 11% would vote null or void.