Peru's presidential hopeful Castillo plows field

After plowing his fields with a team of cows on Thursday, Peru's leading presidential candidate vowed to "reactivate" Peru's economy if elected, as well as promising COVID-19 vaccines for all.

Speaking to journalists at his home outside the town of Chungur in the department of Cajamarca, Pedro Castillo of the Free Peru party said that Peru's "great corruption is constitutional" and that the pandemic has exposed "the precarious of the old and corrupt government to its people."

Wearing a cream colored broad brimmed hat and poncho, Castillo, who won 18.9% of support, with 90% of the ballots processed following Sunday's poll, compared Peru's political situation to that of neighboring Bolivia, when Evo Morales, a former coca farmer, became that country's president.

"There is a certain similarity between Peru and Bolivia regarding its land, its history, its wealth," said Castillo, adding: "wealth the country has to be for everyone... gas has to be for everyone and that is why we are here."

None of the eighteen presidential hopefuls obtained the more than 50% of support needed to avoid a June 6 runoff with opposition leader Keiko Fujimori coming in with 13.2%, right-wing economist Hernando de Soto with 11.86% and ultra-conservative businessman Rafael López Aliaga at 11.83%.

The crowded presidential contest came months after the country's political chaos reached a new level in November, when three men were president in a single week after one was impeached by Congress over corruption allegations and protests forced his successor to resign in favor of the third.

Simultaneously, the country has been among the hardest hit by COVID-19, with more than 1.6 million cases and over 55,812 deaths s a result of the virus.

At the end of his meeting with the press, Castillo kneeled beside his 9-year-old daughter Alondra who was crying at the news that her father would leave home to continue his campaign.

"I have to rescue the country," he told her moments before picking her up and carrying her inside.