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 News from Around the Americas | April 2006 
Left-Wing Candidate Leads Peru Election Race
 The Guardian UK
| | Former army officer Ollanta Humala avoids the press in front of his home in Lima, Peru on Tuesday, April 11, 2006. Humala's place in a presidential runoff seemed assured, turning Peru's electoral race into a contest for second place and the right to face the fiery nationalist who has rattled Peru's elite. (AP/Martin Mejia) |
The leftwing ex-army officer Ollanta Humala, who has pledged to redistribute Peru's wealth, today looked certain to enter a final run-off vote in the country's presidential election.
Mr. Humala was leading the three-way race with more than four-fifths of ballots counted.
The 43-year-old - who has alarmed Washington by identifying himself with Venezuela's anti-US president, Hugo Chavez - had 30.3% of the vote in Sunday's election with 80.3% of votes counted, official figures showed.
It put him well ahead of his challengers - the centre-left former president Alan Garcia and Lourdes Flores, a pro-business former congresswoman - who had 24.9% and 24% respectively.
However, with Mr. Humala's share of the vote running below the 50% needed for a first-round win, he will be pitted against whichever of his opponents finishes second in a run-off vote likely to take place in late May or early June.
Final figures from the first round of voting might not be completed for two weeks.
Mr. Garcia and Ms Flores have been battling for second place. The ex-congresswoman virtually declared victory on Sunday night, but her opponent - who served as Peru's president between 1985 and 1990 - said his own party's internal polling had given him the edge.
The two politicians also competed for a run-off spot at the last presidential election in 2001.
On that occasion, Mr. Garcia took second place before losing out to Alejandro Toledo, the incumbent president who cannot by law run for a second consecutive term.
Throughout his campaign, Mr. Humala has appealed mainly to Peru's rural poor, notably the indigenous and mixed-race majority, who have faced centuries of discrimination by Peru's European-descended political elite.
His constituency mirrors that of Evo Morales, who was elected as Bolivia's first indigenous president in December.
Peru's middle classes and business elite have expressed alarm at Mr. Humala's admiration for Mr. Chavez and his pledge to rewrite the constitution to strip power from what he last week described as "a fascist dictatorship of the economically powerful."
He has also pledged to industrialise Peru's production of coca, the basis for cocaine.
However, in an interview with the Venezuelan-based television station Telesur on Monday, he accused his opponents of distorting his message and insisted he had not ruled out a free trade agreement with the US.
The media had talked of "nationalisations, expropriations and freedom of the press being compromised, but I've never said these things," he said.
"Instead, I reiterate that we have a complete respect from freedom of expression ... and we reject any attempts to expropriate private property."
Some opponents claimed Mr. Humala could return Peru to autocratic rule, saying he led a failed coup against then-president Alberto Fujimori in 2000.
He has also expressed admiration for the 1968-1975 leftwing dictatorship of General Juan Velasco, who took over Peru's media and seized land from wealthy Peruvians for agrarian reform. |
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