Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief.

The highlights this week: Peruvians vote in presidential elections, Mexico makes moves to start fracking, and Brazil announces new security cooperation with the United States.

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief.

The highlights this week: Peruvians vote in presidential elections, Mexico makes moves to start fracking, and Brazil announces new security cooperation with the United States.

Peru’s Presidential Polls

Peru held a presidential election on Sunday, but the results only started becoming clear in the middle of the week. With at least 93 percent of votes tabulated on Thursday afternoon local time, right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori advanced to a runoff. Leftist congressman Roberto Sánchez ranked in second place.

Dozens of candidates were on the ballot, and none received more than 18 percent of the vote. (To win an election outright in Peru, a candidate must earn at least 50 percent in the first round of voting.) Fujimori got around 17 percent and Sánchez about 12 percent. Despite the slow count, European Union observers said the contest appeared free of fraud.

The lack of strong enthusiasm for any one contender reflected Peruvians’ general distrust in politics after a turbulent decade that has seen nine different presidents. The national mood is one of “exhaustion in the face of an endless series of corruption problems” and “hopelessness, discouragement, and disinterest,” Peruvian political scientist Alberto Vergara told Uruguay’s Sarandí Radio on Monday.

But the election results showed more than just that. Though most polls suggested that two right-wing candidates would advance to a runoff—Fujimori and former Lima Mayor Rafael López Aliaga—Sánchez’s relatively strong performance revealed that many Peruvians are interested in a left-wing platform.

That support remains even after former leftist President Pedro Castillo attempted a chaotic 2022 power grab that led to his impeachment. Sánchez served in Castillo’s cabinet; Castillo is currently in prison and endorsed Sánchez, who won votes in Peru’s poorer and more rural areas.

Sánchez has pledged to increase spending on health and education, legalize informal mining, expand state control over the country’s natural resources, and oversee constitutional changes to provide more public services toward Indigenous Peruvians.

Fujimori and López Aliaga both pledged hard-line anti-crime crackdowns and pro-market policies. But Fujimori sought to position herself as a more conciliatory figure, while López Aliaga proclaimed himself an admirer of U.S. President Donald Trump. In recent days, López Aliaga voiced unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud.

On Wednesday, Sánchez’s performance prompted some international investors to sell off their........

© Foreign Policy