OAS / UWinnipeg Mission to Peru
April 10, 2006
Halifax Chronicle Herald
Peru Could Shift Left With Vote;
Nationalist Candidate In Tight Race For Presidency
by Monte Hayes
LIMA, Peru - Three candidates were locked in a tight presidential election Sunday, with Peruvians so polarized over the candidacy of a nationalistic former army officer that he was taunted by hundreds of opponents as he cast his ballot.
Exit polls showed a race too close to call with a run-off between the two top finishers expected in late May or early June.
A victory by the retired army officer, Ollanta Humala, could tilt this Andean country leftward toward Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. His main challengers - Alan Garcia, a former president, and Lourdes Flores, a former businesswoman - generally favour the free-market policies that have generated strong growth but little improvement in the lives of poor Peruvians.
A 43-year-old populist new to politics, Humala has raised fears among many middle- and upper-class Peruvians by identifying with Chavez.
Hundreds of protesters trapped the former army lieutenant colonel and his wife for nearly an hour at their Lima polling station with chants of "Assassin" and "You're the same as Chavez." A few threw rocks.
After voting, Humala and his wife were escorted to a car by riot police with clear plastic shields. Lloyd Axworthy, the former Canadian foreign minister heading an international observer team, accompanied the couple.
"We were the victims of a fascist act," Humala said later at a news conference. He said Flores and Garcia "have sown hate."
The "Assassin" chants were an apparent reference to allegations that Humala committed human rights abuses in 1992 as the commander of a counterinsurgency base in Peru's eastern jungle. He denies any wrongdoing.
The Apoyo and Datum exit polls released at the end of voting showed Humala with more than 29 per cent of the vote; both Garcia and Flores had 24 per cent - meaning the three are running even, given the polls' margins of error of 4-5 percentage points.
Humala, a law-and-order nationalist, said voters had a chance to "begin the country's great transformation." He has heavy support among Peru's poor, who feel bypassed by the country's recent strong economic growth.
His image as a stern military man who has arrived to fight crime and punish the corrupt has been a powerful factor.
"I'm voting for Ollanta because he'll make it safer and get rid of the corrupt," said Nancy Perez Malpartida, a 45-year-old fruit vendor. "What's lacking here is a strong hand to battle street crime. With no police around, we have no way to defend ourselves."
Humala has pledged to favour Peruvian-owned businesses over foreign investors, raise taxes on foreign companies, spend more on the poor and rewrite Peru's constitution to strip power from a political class widely viewed as corrupt.