Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

ELECTIONS-PERU: Humala Should Reach Runoff, but Against Whom?

Ángel Páez

LIMA, Apr 7 2006 (IPS) - More than 16 million Peruvians are eligible to vote in Sunday’s general elections, which will follow the hardest-fought campaign since the restoration of democracy in 1980. Nationalist presidential candidate Ollanta Humala is expected to win, although he would face off with his closest rival in a second round in May, according to the results of four opinion polls.

But it is unclear who will come in second on Sunday, whether the right-wing candidate Lourdes Flores or former social democratic president Alan García (1985-1990).

The latest poll results released by the University of Lima to the foreign press – a ban on publishing surveys in Peru went into effect a week before the elections – show Humala ahead with 29.7 percent, followed by Flores (24.8 percent), and García (22.3 percent).

But the Datum polling company’s results reflected an even closer race, with 26 percent ratings for Humala, compared to 24 percent for both Flores and García.

The one thing that is clear is that no candidate stands a chance of capturing the 50 percent of the vote required to avoid a runoff.

The possibility of a triumph by anti-establishment candidate Humala has caused jitters among national and foreign investors, because he announced that his government would review contracts with foreign companies in order to make them more fair to the country’s poor, raise the taxes charged by the multinational corporations exploiting Peru’s natural resources, and closely monitor and control the large Chilean investments in Peru.

Humala’s rhetoric against the traditional elites and politicians, which echoes positions taken by leftist Presidents Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia, has enabled him to pull ahead of rivals who spent much greater sums on their campaigns.

However, Humala refuses to be classified as left-wing or socialist.

Meanwhile, nearly all of the most recent polls indicate that Flores has slipped slightly while García has gained, leaving the two candidates in a statistical tie.

Of the four polling companies, three found a difference of less than two percentage points between Flores and García. That means the former president may make it to the second round, because his ratings are on the rise, while Flores’s are declining, say analysts.

Pollsters also agree that if Flores, a former Congresswoman, ends up facing off with Humala, she would win by 46.6 percent to 41.3 percent of the vote.

Humala, however, would beat García by a wide margin: 43.9 against 36.7 percent.

Whoever reaches the presidency will have difficulties in governing because of the lack of a majority in Congress, whose 120 seats are up for grabs on Sunday.

Humala’s support base is mainly in the poorest parts of the country, especially the Andean highlands in central and southern Peru, as well as the Amazon jungle. Flores, on the other hand, is popular in Lima and the large coastal cities, while García is strongest in the north and in a few Andean cities.

Unlike Humala and Flores, the former president is backed by an organisation with 76 years of experience in electoral campaigning, the Aprista Party of Peru, a branch of the American Revolutionary Popular Alliance (APRA) founded by Raúl Haya de la Torre. As such, he can count on the support of party cells in every corner of the country, a fundamental factor in gathering votes.

By contrast, Humala founded his Peruvian Nationalist Party in July 2005, and was obliged to form an alliance with the Union for Peru in order to run for president, since his own party was not registered in time.

Flores, for her part, is the candidate for the National Unity alliance formed by the Christian People’s Party and National Solidarity Party in 2000.

Humala, who describes himself as a nationalist, was a lieutenant colonel in the Peruvian army until he was forced to retire in December 2004 for publicly questioning the military brass. He then embarked on a political career, marked by a meteoric rise that brought him to the top of the polls in a mere eight months.

Nevertheless, his image has been seriously tarnished by accusations regarding his participation in the military’s fight against guerrilla forces in the 1990s. He is under investigation for human rights abuses during his command of a counterinsurgency base in the Amazon jungle region.

Some have drawn comparisons between Humala and former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori – currently in jail in Chile awaiting extradition for multiple charges against him in Peru – who defeated renowned novelist Mario Vargas Llosa in the 1990 presidential runoff vote, despite his lack of previous political experience.

Without a political organisation to fall back on, Fujimori built his decade-long administration on the foundations of the Armed Forces and the National Intelligence Service.

Humala seems to be following suit, since his campaign is being run by former army officers, many of whom were linked to the corruption-riddled Fujimori regime.

More than anything else, Sunday’s elections will be heavily influenced by disillusion, anger and desperation.

Humala seems to have successfully capitalised on the frustration of a large majority of Peruvians who do not understand why their living standards have not improved since 2000, despite the fact that exports have doubled, inflation has been maintained at less than two percent annually, the gross domestic product (GDP) has grown by an average of five percent a year, and foreign reserves have reached a record 14.2 billion dollars.

Despite these impressive statistics, many Peruvians remain mired in poverty.

The National Statistics Institute maintains that the poverty rate has fallen to 48 percent from 54 percent in 2001, but the World Bank estimates that 51.6 percent of the more than 26 million inhabitants of Peru live below the poverty line.

The only major social programme implemented by outgoing President Alejandro Toledo was an initiative launched in 2005 with the aim of helping 250,000 families living in extreme poverty. In practice, the creation of this programme was nothing more than a symbolic act.

The unequal distribution of wealth in Peru has not been remedied in any significant way under Toledo, whose economic policy was essentially a continuation of Fujimori’s, with some improvements.