Peruvian voters to pick between bad and worse

Left-wing nationalist Ollanta Humala leads the polls in Peru's deadlocked presidential contest. Picture / Reuters

Beatriz Alonso is having her nails done at a mall in the middle-class neighbourhood of Jesus Maria as she watches the electoral results on television.

She cringes as she hears that the gap between the second and third-placed presidential candidates is narrowing. With 99 per cent of the polls in, three weeks after the elections, Alan Garcia has edged ahead.

They've been in a dead-heat since the April 9 election. Since no candidate managed to get more than 50 per cent of the vote, whoever is second will proceed to a run-off early next month with first-placed candidate Ollanta Humala.

By Wednesday it was over for third-placed Lourdes Flores, the woman investors saw as the best candidate to run Peru's $75 billion economy.

With almost all the ballots tallied, there were too few left to give Flores an advantage. Garcia had 24.32 per cent, or 2.98 million votes and Flores 23.8 per cent, or 2.92 million votes.

"It looks like we'll have to choose between bad and worse," says Alonso, a 28-year-old telecommunications receptionist. "Alan left the country in ruins and Ollanta is too radical."

Humala, a left-wing nationalist, is a former colonel who led a failed coup attempt against Alberto Fujimori in 2000. His authoritarian tendencies, sabre-rattling at Chile and his praise for Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro have raised many worries within Peru and adjacent countries.

Chavez has publicly backed Humala and called his most likely opponent, Garcia, "corrupt" and a "bandit".

Humala's anti-globalisation platform has also raised concerns, even prompting outgoing President Alejandro Toledo to hurriedly sign a free-trade agreement with the United States the week after the elections - an agreement Humala has vowed to reverse.

Humala's showing at the polls surprised many who underestimated the appeal of his anti-establishment platform in a country where more than 50 per cent of the population is below the poverty line.

Although Humala grew up in a middle-class neighbourhood in the capital, his support has been strongest in rural areas and among the poor and indigenous classes.

He comes from a family with a long political tradition. His father, Isaac Humala, championed the eccentric philosophy of "etnocacerismo", a racist creed which calls on Peru's "copper-skinned" natives to wrest power from the white upper classes.

Garcia is second to Humala. The former President ruled from 1985 to 1990, ending in disgrace and facing corruption allegations. Under his rule, hyperinflation flourished and terrorism from the rebel group Shining Path increased. Garcia ended up in exile after charges of embezzlement weakened his regime.

"Peruvians must have collective amnesia," says 30-year-old engineer David Valencia. "I don't understand how Garcia can be there. But I guess he managed to convince a lot of new voters who are too young to remember his time in power."

Just a month before the elections Garcia's support was in the 16 per cent range. He began rising in the polls after he started using reggaeton music in his campaign - a Latin reggae rhythm popular among younger people and the urban poor.

The social democrat also represents Peru's longest-standing political party, the Partido Aprista Peruano, which is in the political centre.

The big surprise was the showing by Flores - the centre-right-wing candidate and the darling of international markets. She led all polls for months going into the elections, and raised hopes of becoming Peru's first woman President, riding on the tide of Michelle Bachelet's victory in Chile in January.

Political observers says Flores' platform was far from feminist, but her apparent fall from grace is raising questions about whether macho Peru was ready for a woman President, says Virginia Vargas, director of the Flora Tristan Centre for Peruvian Women.

"But just having a woman in power is no guarantee that women's issues would be heard," Vargas says. "In fact, under Flores there would have been no possibility of advancing on sexual and reproductive rights, for instance, because she had a very Catholic right-wing alliance backing her."

Vargas says the election has cast a worrying political scenario. No candidate obtained more than a third of the vote and no party managed a majority in Congress.

That will make it nearly impossible for whoever wins to govern effectively.

Peruvian sociologist Oscar Chambi says the political instability generated by the lack of credible candidates could even threaten democracy in Peru.

"We have candidates with shady backgrounds, including allegations of corruption and human rights abuses," Chambi says. "In the case of Garcia's APRA party, there is a general who has been accused of the mass murder of political detainees during the time of Shining Path terrorism.

"In Humala's case, there is the Madre Mia case, a military operation in which many innocent and unarmed people died and in which four witnesses say Humala took part."

There are also concerns from gay rights groups about the way they will be treated under either winner. During the campaign, Humala's mother made inflammatory statements about homosexuals, calling for all gays to be shot dead. Although Humala has taken pains to distance himself from those remarks, many worry about the environment being cultivated.

Gay activist Fernando Cisneros, who works with street youth, says: "When we went to a peace march recently people yelled at us: 'Good thing Humala is going to win, so you'll all be shot'."

Meanwhile, Humala has said he'd like to emulate the model of former dictator General Juan Velasco Alvarado - yet another reason some Peruvians say they have to worry.

Velasco's socialist dictatorship imposed statist policies, nationalised industries and carried out an ill-conceived land reform that nearly collapsed Peru's economy.

For Cecilia Tamashiro, the prospect of either another Velasco or another Garcia is enough to get her thinking about leaving Peru.

"I fear for our future whoever wins," says the 37-year-old psychology student and mother of two.

"I don't want to leave, but I remember both eras, and there's no going back."