A Peruvian presidential candidate died Sunday in a car crash on a remote Andean highway while traveling to a political rally.
Napoleón Becerra, 61, was the candidate for the Party of Workers and Entrepreneurs of Peru in the April 12 election. The leftist was one of 36 candidates and a recent poll showed him with less than 1 percent of voting intentions.
Becerra’s vehicle went off the road in the rural district of the town of Pilpichaca, 430 kilometers (267 miles) southeast of the capital Lima, local police said. Mayor Balvín Huamaní told The Associated Press that three passengers in the candidate’s car were injured.
Becerra’s party said his body was taken to Huamanga, the capital of the Ayacucho region where the accident happened.
Peruvians hope the general election will stop the country’s widening political crisis. Jose María Balcázar, 83, became Peru’s eighth president in a decade in February, replacing another interim leader who was ousted amid corruption allegations.
