Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean | Analysis

ELECTIONS-PERU: Rightwing and Anti-Establishment Candidates Neck and Neck

Analysis by Ángel Páez

LIMA, Mar 20 2006 (IPS) - Twenty candidates are contesting Peru’s Apr. 9 elections, the largest number since democracy was restored in 1980. Quantity, however, does not guarantee quality, and it looks like voters plan to keep their preferences to themselves until the last minute.

Their lack of definition might be due to the scarcity of attractive messages. Only three of the 20 candidates stand out from the field: rightwinger Lourdes Flores, nationalist retired military officer Ollanta Humala, and social democratic former president Alan García (1985-1990).

According to the latest survey of voting intentions, the anti-establishment Humala has caught up with Flores, who had been the poll favourite for nearly a year. The results now predict a draw, with 31 percent of respondents intending to vote for Flores, and 30 percent for Humala.

In fact, Flores has lost ground in the polls, while Humala has recovered popularity in spite of accusations that he was responsible for murders, kidnappings and forced disappearances of civilians when he commanded the military detachment at Madre Mía in the country’s Amazon jungle region in 1992 during the counterinsurgency fight against the Maoist Shining Path guerrillas. The office of the public prosecutor is investigating the allegations.

Unlike Humala, who has not spent conspicuously on his campaign, Flores has spent millions on advertising, reinforcing criticism from her rivals who say she is “the candidate of the rich,” a label she may find difficult to shake off. Her running mate is banker Arturo Woodman, who has close ties to Peru’s most powerful business tycoon, Dionisio Romero.

But the voting preferences for Flores and Humala are shaky, and merely indicate a likelihood that the two candidates will be facing off in a second round.

The polls also indicate that 38 percent of the electorate do not know whom they will vote for, a level of indecision that is unprecedented in Peru.

One reason for this may be disenchantment with the presidency of Alejandro Toledo, a Stanford-trained economist of humble origins and indigenous roots. Toledo came to power in July 2001, after leading a movement which contributed to the fall of authoritarian former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000). Fujimori is now detained in Chile, awaiting extradition to Peru.

Toledo managed to keep the economy healthy, with average gross domestic product growth of 4.5 percent a year, but he squandered the popularity he originally enjoyed. For most of his mandate, only 10 percent of the population approved of his administration.. His fall in popularity also affected the political class as a whole.

His government’s macroeconomic results are impressive on paper, but 51 percent of the population continues to live below the poverty line, and has not seen any benefit from the rise in exports, foreign investment and tax revenue.

While Flores attends dinners in luxury hotels, where guests pay 100 dollars per person in campaign contributions, Humala travels to the country’s slums and impoverished rural villages, and talks of radical economic changes to benefit the poor, a reduction in legislators’ salaries, and setting up a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution.

Flores preaches an all-out war on drug trafficking, while offering investment in alternative crops to induce small farmers to give up growing coca.

Humala treks out to illegal plantations and, surrounded by hundreds of coca growers, says that if he were president there would be no compulsory eradication of the crop, which is the approach demanded and financed by the United States. This remained his stance even in the southern Apurimac valley, where three-quarters of the coca crop goes to the drug trade. (Coca is also used for traditional and medicinal purposes among indigenous people in the Andes region).

In another indication of his political position, in the space of one month Humala met with presidents Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Evo Morales of Bolivia, Néstor Kirchner of Argentina, and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, projecting an image of himself as the next link in the chain of progressive or centre-left Latin American heads of state.

With Morales, Humala discussed a bilateral anti-drug agenda.

Flores intends to continue Toledo’s neoliberal free-market policies of keeping macro-economic indicators in the black.

Humala, heir to a second-hand populism and radical nationalistic rhetoric with military overtones, has understood that the electorate is tired of traditional politicians.

The dilemma faced by voters is that Humala represents change, although with unpredictable results, while Flores represents continuity with the status quo.

Meanwhile, former president García has profited from the voters’ indecision. His share in the polls has risen steadily since January, from 17 to 22 percent. This is no mean achievement for someone remembered as the leader of one of the worst governments this country has ever had, who presided over an unprecedented economic crisis.

García says that his mistakes then were owing to his “youth” – he was elected president at the age of 35 – and that he is now much more mature, more experienced, and better able to govern.

After the collapse of the Fujimori regime, García returned to Peru and again stood for president, against Toledo who was expected to win easily. However, the surprisingly large vote for García forced a second round, which Toledo ended up winning with 55 percent of the ballot.

The 2001 elections showed that the memory of García’s unfortunate period of government was not an insurmountable barrier. As voters’ preferences polarise into the Flores and Humala camps, the social democrat could pick up votes and aim at reaching a second round against either one of them.

Trailing far behind, in fourth place, is former caretaker president Valentín Paniagua, who governed from Fujimori’s departure in 2000 until Toledo took office in 2001. Paniagua had an approval rating of 70 percent at the end of his brief administration, but now his poll ratings stand at a mere six percent. Far-right Fujimori loyalist Marta Chávez follows with five percent.

It is most unlikely that Chávez will make any headway, in spite of the support she has received from Fujimori’s fiancée, Satomi Kataoka, who has joined her campaign with great fanfare. Kataoka announced her forthcoming marriage with the former president, who faces charges of corruption and human rights violations.

In this country, so disillusioned with its politicians, the only certainty is that the election of Peru’s next president hinges on the undecided voters.