Pedro Castillo of "Free Peru," a party which describes itself as communist, shot out of thin air in the past few weeks to claim first place in tonight's Peruvian presidential first round.

It is a shock beyond shocks

According to that exit poll, his opponent could be far-right Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of former dictator Alberto Fujimori. (Tied with her for second is famous economist Hernando De Soto)

His supporters cheekily call him "Peter Castle" and in the past few days there has been a flood of memes. If you search that name on Twitter right now there's a ton of activity

I was posting about him a few weeks ago when I noticed he was tracking up in polls, but this is just head-spinning. One of those stories that accelerated way faster than I expected https://twitter.com/PopulismUpdates/status/1375515980676222989

Castillo's party is apparently tied for first in the legislative election poll too

This is how Pedro Castillo showed up to his polling station earlier

One of Castillo's more radical proposals is his intent to create a Constitutional Assembly charged with crafting a new constitution for Peru. He also says he'll dissolve Congress if they don't approve this plan

Results map via @FilisDLC

Red: Castillo
Orange: Fujimori
Purple: De Soto
Green: Forsyth
Blue: Acuña
Light blue: López Aliaga

Castillo apparently dominated the vote in many of the poorest areas of the country

This Americas Quarterly article includes profiles of most of the other major candidates. But to put things in perspective, they didn't even include Castillo https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/meet-the-candidates-peru/