Peru’s primary presidential candidate, Rafael Belande On Tuesday, he emerged unharmed from a shooting attackPolice said that while he was traveling in his car in the town of Cerro Azul, south of Lima.
Malabi Belundi, 50 years old, leader of the right-wing Popular Freedom Party, He was shot several times by individuals on a motorcycle.
“Gunshots were fired at the car and at him.”Peruvian police chief General Oscar Arreola told the press. There were no bullet wounds in the attack.
“He was not harmed. The criminals did not achieve their goal” pFormer Minister Pedro Cateriano, founder of the Libertad Popular party, said in statements to RPP Radio.
Belondi’s photo with traces of blood on his face and on his white shirt was widely spread on networks and media. The truck was driven by a political driver.
The blood will be the result of injuries caused by windshield fragments The police chief himself said that he was hit by three bullets, without specifying whether the glass fragments hit the politician or his driver.
Belaunde was attacked near a family home in Cerro Azul, near the coast.
The politician told the police that “He did not receive any blackmail or other threats.” Arreola noted.
The leader of the People’s Freedom Party aspires to the presidency in the elections that will be held next April 12, among a large group of pre-candidates.
At the moment, he is not among the favorites in opinion polls led by former Lima Mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga and Kiko Fujimori, daughter of the late former president Alberto Fujimori, both on the right.
Rafael Belande is the grandson of former President Fernando BelandeH., who ruled Peru from 1963 to 1968 and from 1980 to 1985.
The candidate’s party linked the attack to the start of the election campaign. “It is a bad start to the campaign. (…) We must strongly reject this shooting attack on Rafael Bellandi in the morning,” Cateriano said.
The leader stressed that Peru “Unfortunately, it is in the context of active criminal activity.”
For his part, former Interior Minister Gino Costa, who is close to Bellandi, urged the government on the X network to “give guarantees to the presidential candidates and stop the electoral violence now.”
Peru has been facing in recent years A wave of violence and organized crime unprecedented in the country. Multiple gangs extort and kill those who resist the extortion, which sparked widespread protests led by youth and the transport and merchant sectors, who are the most affected.
As a result of unstoppable insecurity, Congress dismissed then-President Dina Boluarty in a summary trial on October 10.
Right-wing Parliament Speaker José GiriHe takes power on an interim basis until July 2026, when the new president will be sworn in.