When CNN announced the results for the first round of Peru’s presidential election on Sunday, April 11, the image they used was striking — or rather, the one they didn’t use. Their chosen image of the candidate who came in clear first, Pedro Castillo of the Perú Libre Party, was a stock cutout of a dark silhouette.

It wasn’t just a case of ignorant foreigners overlooking a key player in a Latin American election; Peru’s own national media seemed to be equally oblivious of the man who ended up gaining almost one in five votes. Just a week prior to the election, many polls saw him coming in seventh place among a slate of 18 presidential candidates.

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