For the 35 candidates vying to be Peru’s next president, the question of how to beat back organized crime could be what it takes to break out ahead of the pack.
The record number of presidential hopefuls aiming to become the South American country’s ninth head of state in a decade are campaigning amid a growing security crisis.
Homicides in Peru rose from about 1,000 in 2018 to more than 2,600 last year, and reported extortions surged from 3,200 to more than 26,500 during the period, police data showed.
The rising crime rates coincide with the growing presence of international criminal groups, who compete with local gangs in extortion rackets and contract killings amid a perceived climate of impunity.
“Even the police are corrupt,” said Karen Santiago, a 29-year-old engineer.
More than 27 million voters would be able to cast a ballot for president on April 12, along with choosing 130 deputies and 60 senators.
If no presidential candidate wins 50 percent of the vote, a runoff election in June would pit the top two candidates against each other.
Far-right candidate Rafael Lopez Aliaga, who leads in opinion polls, has suggested building penal colonies in the Peruvian rainforest using “a natural fence made of shushupes,” also known as South American bushmaster pit vipers.
“They will take care of security,” he said.
A former Lima mayor Lopez Aliaga, a supporter of US President Donald Trump, also supports having US forces capture wanted criminals on Peruvian soil.
Second-place candidate Keiko Fujimori, daughter of former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, said she wanted detained criminals to earn their sustenance while incarcerated.
“We will force prisoners to work for their food, for their protein,” she said.
Comedian and TV presenter Carlos Alvarez, who is polling among the top five candidates, said he believed Peru must withdraw from the American Convention on Human Rights to “apply the death penalty to hitmen.”
“Those wretches don’t deserve to live,” he said.
Candidates further behind in the polls have put forth more extreme ideas to distinguish themselves, such as Progresemos party president Paul Jaimes, who suggested rewards of US$29,000 and a promotion to police officers who capture or kill criminals.
Left-wing candidate Ronald Atencio has revived the memory of paramilitary groups in Peru.
“We are going to form an annihilation squad against crime” with 500 elite police officers, Atencio said, adding that they would not conduct “extrajudicial executions.”
Public security experts have sounded the alarm over some of the campaign initiatives.
“The punitive proposals like the ones mentioned are not effective for combating organized, transnational crime,” Catholic University of Peru criminologist Erika Solis said.
For former National Penitentiary Institute head Javier Llaque, the solution is not “more laws,” but rather “tougher sentences, changes to what already exists. We just have to act, but in a strategic manner.”
“Candidates shouldn’t try to be the toughest sheriff,” he said.
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