The political use of terrorism in the 2021 Peruvian presidential campaign

Abstract

The 2021 presidential elections constituted a turning point in the Peruvian’s recent history. In a context
of sociosanitary crisis and impugnments to the political system, the Bicentenary Elections evidenced the
profound social fragmentation and polarization between the representatives of the neoliberal project and
those who promote a reformist alternative. In particular, the presidential campaign for the second round between the right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori and the left-wing candidate Pedro Castillo configured a propitious scenario for the instrumentalization of the “teruqueo”. This strategy, used by the dominant elites in the post-conflict period to discredit any person, act or group that constitutes a threat to the established order, was reconfigured at this juncture to avoid a potential victory for the Serrano candidate, constructing him as a terrorist threat that would put democracy at risk. Through critical discourse analysis, we analyse which were the discursive resources used by the dominant elites to delegitimize the left-wing adversary, using for this the messages issued in the presidential debates, the graphic campaign pro Fujimori and her government plan and the public speeches from right-wing representatives. As main conclusions, it is observed that the three most used strategies were: 1. the negativization of the leftist candidate through his construction as a terrorist enemy; 2. the presentation of the right-wing candidate as the protector of democracy and freedom against the communist threat; 3. and the appeal to the social memory of the internal armed conflict that fueled the fear of the return of terrorism. We maintain that these strategies managed to frame the media treatment of the presidential campaign as a confrontation between “us” the defenders of democracy and “them” the promoters of the communist dictatorship due to the persistence of socio-historical elements that systematically emerge in Peru in contexts of sociopolitical crisis.