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By Verónica Ferrari

Peru's elections will be held on Sunday, April 11th of this year amidst ongoing political crises. Francisco Sagasti is serving as interim president after Martín Vizcarra (who had replaced Pedro Pablo Kuczynski) was impeached and Manuel Merino took his place. Merino was forced to resign due to massive protests against him. These protests were violently repressed by the police, resulting in the deaths of two young people, a situation for which justice is still pending.

This new Congress, to be elected in April, will replace the Congress elected a year ago, after Vizcarra decided to close it for continually obstructing the fight against corruption.

After the polls closed, the elections resulted in two openly gay congressmen, Alberto de Belaunde and Miguel Gonzales, both from the Purple Party. Leftist candidates Gabriela Salvador (Broad Front) and Gahela Tseneg Cari (Together for Peru) were eliminated. Both, who identify as lesbian and transgender, respectively, are running again in these elections.

Gabriela Salvador: making violence visible

Gabriela Salvador (36) is a lawyer specializing in environmental law, and in these elections she made an ideological leap, switching from the Broad Front to the Purple Party. The reason was her complaint of workplace harassment by Congressman Lenin Checco, for whom she worked as an advisor.

 Her proposals regarding the LGBTQ+ population are the same as those she put forward in January 2020: a marriage equality law and a gender identity law, both of which remain stalled in various legislatures. She also advocates for gender-based oversight and enforcement, prioritizing the establishment of indicators that highlight discrimination and violence.

Gahela Tseneg Cari Contreras : transfeminist and peasant for a new Constitution

Gahela Tseneg Cari Contreras is 28 years old and holds a bachelor's degree in Law. Originally from the province of Ica, she is running for office in Lima for the second time with Juntos por el Perú, the party led by candidate Verónika Mendoza. She is recognized as a prominent trans activist who also identifies as Afro-Peruvian and Indigenous. Her proposals are the same as those of the candidates from the Purple Party (marriage equality, gender identity law, hate crimes, and policies aimed at the LGBTQ+ community), with the difference that her party, unlike the Purple Party, seeks to change the neoliberal economic model that has been in place in Peru for at least two decades. This model privatized basic services and increased the cost of access to education and healthcare, the two areas hardest hit by the pandemic, which has made the country one of the nations with the highest number of COVID-19 deaths. This change in the economic model implies a new Constitution that replaces the Fujimori-era Constitution of 1993.

Susel Paredes: a long-standing politician

Susel Paredes is an experienced politician, lawyer, and lesbian activist who has held various positions in political parties, both left-wing and right-wing. She was Secretary General of the Socialist Party and later the top congressional candidate for the Purple Party, having previously been a member of Fuerza Social, led by the now-imprisoned former mayor Susana Villarán, where she served as the Oversight Manager for Metropolitan Lima. She also served as an advisor to the Ministry of the Interior, and as the Oversight and Citizen Security Manager for the district of La Victoria (under current presidential candidate George Forsyth) and for the district of Magdalena del Mar. She has run for Congress with the Socialist Party and Fuerza Social, had dealings with the Broad Front and Somos Perú, and is now running for the Purple Party, with a strong chance of winning a seat due to her party's number on the ballot. Paredes and her wife, Graciela Aljovín, are currently involved in a legal battle with the Peruvian state to have their marriage, performed in the United States in 2016, recognized.

Alejandro Cavero: no major proposals for the LGBT+ community

Alejandro Cavero (28), a young lawyer who has worked in political journalism and as an advisor to the Prime Minister and Congress, is running for office with the right-wing party Avanza País, led by economist Hernando de Soto. Cavero defends the current economic model: he opposes increasing taxes on high-earning companies, and although his website openly identifies him as LGBTQ+, he has offered few proposals specifically for his community. In a debate with candidate Gabriela Salvador, while she stated her support for marriage equality, he emphasized his support for civil unions, without mentioning marriage.

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