Team member Lucien Chauvin on Peru's elections published in the Washington Post.

‘In Peru, a rural schoolteacher rises from obscurity to the presidency’ – by Lucien Chauvin published in the Washington Post.

The rise of Pedro Castillo, a previously obscure leader of a rural teachers union, to Peru’s highest office is the most glaring example yet of the power of the pandemic to upend politics in Latin America.

The ravages of the coronavirus, and the surges in poverty and inequality it has caused, have provoked nearly 1 million people to protest in Colombia and saw a communist elected mayor of Santiago, the capital of Chile, the region’s free-market model.

Here in Peru, a what-more-have-we-got-to-lose mentality helped propel one of the most unusual candidates ever to win a Latin American presidency. A 51-year-old, straw-hat-wearing schoolteacher and farmer who reported an income last year of $16,600, Castillo has never held public office.

Read the full article here…