All about the Wifey

Japanese wife Fujimori's biggest asset on the Peruvian campaign trail
04/17/2006

By hiroshi Ishida, The Asahi Shimbun


LIMA--No matter where she goes, the new Japanese bride of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori is big news here.

The media doesn't seem to be able to get enough of Satomi Kataoka, 40, who wed Fujimori earlier this month.

Whether she's at the airport, leaving her hotel or on one of her visits to the Peruvian capital's slums, the TV cameras are there in hordes.

In fact, her new and very public profile is even credited for boosting support for the pro-Fujimori Alliance for the Future party in Peru's April 9 congressional elections, held just days after the couple's marriage was officially registered in Tokyo.

"Satomi's contribution was great," said a senior alliance official.

Before she began to grab headlines, Peru's major media organizations gave little coverage to the alliance. Support rates had dwindled.

While a pro-Fujimori presidential candidate failed to gain enough votes for a runoff presidential election to be held later this year, the pro-Fujimori force won 15 of the 120 congressional seats.

Fujimori's daughter, Keiko, 30, was one of the successful candidates.

After visiting Fujimori, 67, earlier this month at the detention center in Chile where he is awaiting a decision on whether to extradite him to Peru, Kataoka went straight to Lima to help with the campaign--even despite warnings that she would be investigated because of her financial support of the former political heavyweight.

It was her second visit to Peru. Born in Gifu Prefecture, Kataoka studied in the United States after graduating from junior high school.

She is said to have developed wide connections in political and business circles while working at a high-class club in Los Angeles.

After returning to Japan, she says an acquaintance entrusted her with the operation of a Tokyo hotel. Kataoka is said to be hugely interested in politics and has written a book on the resurrection of the Bushido spirit. She was also involved in a campaign to oppose relocation of war-related Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo.

She says she met Fujimori in 2001 while he was in self-imposed exile in Japan after Peruvian authorities issued an arrest order against him for corruption and other charges.

After learning Fujimori was having a hard time in Japan, Kataoka said she offered him use of a hotel room and supported him financially.

But, deciding to stage his election campaign from Chile, Fujimori left Japan in November. He was detained upon his arrival in the country at the request of the Peruvian government. His election bid was disqualified in January.

Of Fujimori she says, "He is a scholar by nature. It seems he was driven not by hunger for power but by the urge to resolve the challenging research tasks in Peru."

Visiting slums in Peru, she found residents had no tap water or electricity supply. Many asked her to "bring back Chino (Fujimori), the only one who helped us."

"I learned for the first time what the poverty he fought for 10 years was like," she says, adding, "What he did was not wrong." She says she plans to live with Fujimori in Japan if Chile decides not to hand him over to Peru.(IHT/Asahi: April 17,2006)

copyright 2006 The Asahi Shimbun Company. All rights reserved. No reproduction or republication without written permission.

Greetings from the neighborhood!

Venezuela president says he'd blow up oilfields if U.S. attacked

Canadian Press
Wednesday, April 19, 2006


ASUNCION, Paraguay -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned Wednesday his government would blow up its own oilfields if the United States ever were to attack -- the latest in a series of warnings against Washington.

U.S. officials have repeatedly denied any military plans against Chavez but also have called him a threat to stability in the region. Speaking with other South American leaders, Chavez said his conflict with the United States is rooted in Washington's thirst for oil.

If the United States were to attack, Chavez said: "We'll do like the Iraqis. We won't have any other alternative -- blow up our own oilfields but they aren't going to take that oil.''

Chavez, however, cited what he called a regular flow of threatening statements and actions from the U.S. government -- from naval exercises behind held this month in the Caribbean to U.S. complaints about Venezuela's deepening ties with Iran.

Chavez rattled off a list of insults he said the United States is trying to pin on him: "tyrant, dictator, abuser of human rights, there is no freedom of expression in Venezuela.''

"The real reason for the open conflict...is energy,'' Chavez said.

"They will never admit that because, of course, they're looking for other excuses.''

Venezuela is the world's fifth-largest oil exporter and remains a major supplier of oil to the United States.

Chavez called U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield, whom he recently threatened to expel, "a constant provocation'' and accused Washington of stirring up suspicions about his country's relations with Iran.

"The latest they've invented is that we're sending uranium to Iran and what's more, yesterday, it came out in the Venezuela press that we're making a secret plan to bring Iranian nuclear missiles and install them in Venezuela,'' he said.

The Venezuelan newspaper 2001 published that report Tuesday, citing unidentified U.S. intelligence sources saying Iran and Venezuela had made a secret deal to ship missiles to Venezuela and Cuba aboard oil tankers. It did not provide any details about its sources and the report was roundly denied by Venezuelan officials as preposterous.

Chavez said the United States seems to be "searching for an excuse for anything'' against Venezuela, noting U.S. warships are holding naval exercises this month in the Caribbean -- "there under our very noses.''

In Caracas, meanwhile, Venezuelan Defence Minister Admiral Orlando Maniglia said the military plans to hold its own exercises soon along its coasts and with neighbouring countries' armed forces.

"We have the same sort of exercises,'' Maniglia said.

"We already have planned some future exercises with the government of Curacao and also with the Dutch, with the navy and armed forces of Colombia...with the Brazilians.''

The dates of the training were unclear but the defence minister suggested Venezuela's military is planning air and naval exercises along its coast in the short-term.



© Canadian Press 2006

Peruvian myopia

April 16: Peruvian myopia
Edited by Richard Lapper, Latin America Editor
Published: April 16 2006 20:42 Last updated: April 16 2006 20:42

If foreign investors are shocked by the election result in Peru they might want to start questioning the quality of their political advice.

For weeks investment banks and their Peruvian contacts have been blithely assuring clients that Lourdes Flores, the pro-market favourite, was a sure winner in the second round of the contest. But for any observer who occasionally ventured outside the better-off Lima suburbs like San Isidro and Miraflores, it has been obvious for a long time that the 50 per cent of Peruvians earning less than $2 a day were unlikely to vote for a candidate so clearly associated with the interests of Lima-based elites.

Ms Flores may have showed up well in polling last year but her campaign has failed to make any impact outside the capital. The reason is in her choice of running mate and campaign advisers Ms Flores has demonstrated a total lack of political touch. With 10 per cent of the vote still to be counted, many of them from generally more conservative overseas-based voters, Ms Flores could conceivably squeeze into the second round run-off, although it looks a long shot. (Click here for a good analysis of the overseas vote and here for the latest voting figures.)

If she doesn’t make it, it is only a matter of time before Wall Street starts to warm to Alan García, the left-wing former president who looks set to contest the second round against the front-running nationalist Ollanta Humala. Mr García has disowned many of the catastrophic policies which he championed in the 1980s and has said that he favours an economic strategy via a vis Peru’s relationship with the US (although he also says he will renegotiate the recently agreed free trade deal).

In any event, with copper prices going through roof investors will soon be on the look out for reasons to buy Peruvian assets, not least because after all the recent shorting, yields will soon look irresistibly attractive. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the Mexican front runner, has already been compared to Brazil´s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Expect Mr García to receive the same treatment. Local investors, as well as any foreigner with a long-term commitment in mining or hydrocarbons, will sensibly remain more sceptical.

U.S., Peru Sign Free Trade Agreement (old news; sorry)

By GEORGE GEDDA
Associated Press Writer

April 12, 2006, 6:36 PM EDT


WASHINGTON -- The United States and Peru on Wednesday signed a free trade agreement that the administration said will lead to increased prosperity in both countries.

Once implemented, 80 percent of consumer and industrial products and more than two-thirds of current U.S. farm exports to Peru would become duty-free. Many products from Peru already enter the U.S. market without duties. The agreement ensures that this status would remain unchanged.

As Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo looked on, the official documents were signed at an Organization of American States ceremony by U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman and Peruvian Minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism Alfredo Ferrero Diez Canseco.

Ratification by the congresses of both countries is required.

The agreement has caused a political storm in Lima, but Toledo said the pact will ensure long term benefits in such areas as jobs and access to health, nutrition and education.

He accused his opponents of engaging in "easy populism" that may win support from voters but damages the country's long-term interests. "When you look at the future, you don't reduce poverty by playing with words.... I'm not playing short-term games."

Ollanta Humala, the opposition candidate who received the most votes in Sunday's presidential election in Peru, accused Toledo's government of mishandling the negotiations leading to the agreement.

"We are in favor of a trade deal with the United States and with different nations," he said Wednesday in Lima. "What has happened is this commercial deal was poorly negotiated."

Humala faces a runoff against either former Congresswoman Lourdes Flores, who supports the deal, or former president Alan Garcia, who believes the pact should be renegotiated.

Humala says the decision on whether to move ahead with the agreement should be left to the new government, due to be installed on July 28.

In 2005, U.S. goods exported to Peru totaled nearly $2.3 billion. Two-way trade between the U.S. and Peru last year totaled $7.4 billion.

Critics in Peru contend the agreement would lead to steep increases in the price of medicine.

And the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) said the accord lacks protections for Peruvian workers.

"The agreement's language leaves workers to confront routine violations of their labor rights without recourse, and no incentive to the government to improve existing labor laws," said Jeff Vogt, a WOLA labor specialist.

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., noted that President Toledo has advocated the inclusion of stronger labor standards in the agreement's text. Acceptance of Toledo's advice will ensure broader congressional support, said Rangel, the top Democrat on the House committee responsible for trade issues.

"It's not too late to change this pact for the better," Rangel said.

The agreement won support from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

"From Lima, Ohio, to Lima, Peru, this trade agreement will mean growth and opportunity for workers, farmers, and business," said Dan Christman, the chamber's senior vice president of international affairs.

"It also sends a message to our friends and allies in the Andean region about our commitment to the rule of law, workers rights, and transparency in business and government," he said.

Anne Alonzo, co-chair of the Hispanic Alliance for Free Trade, said the agreement "means more growth opportunity for Hispanic-American business owners and workers here in the United States, including many of them of Peruvian descent."

In May 2004, the United States agreed to negotiate free trade accords with Peru, Colombia and Ecuador. Negotiations with Peru concluded in December and an agreement with Colombia was reached in February. Discussions are ongoing with Ecuador.

From a different perspective... (if the 's' in "globalization" and "18.04.06" didn't tip you off)

Peru's presidential front-runner vows nationalist answer to globalisation

18.04.06
By Gavin Esler

You have to get up early to catch Peru's presidential front-runner Ollanta Humala. It's four o'clock in the morning, and I'm in Lima, trying to arrange an interview.

His advisers say he will be on the 6am plane to Cusco, the ancient Inca capital 3500m up in the Andes. If I travel with him, he will talk to me.

A few minutes before take-off, Humala, his smiling young wife and a dozen aides - all dressed in red T-shirts bearing the words "Love For Peru" - bounded on board.

"Don't talk to him now," an aide warns. "He needs sleep." I turn to an educated, middle-class Peruvian lady next to me. "The red shirts," I wonder aloud. "Is he a socialist?"

"Socialist?" the woman replies. "No. He's a Nationalist. Red and white - the colours of Peru."

A few years ago as a military leader he tried to overthrow Peru's Government. Now he is through to the second round of the presidential elections.

Win or lose, he represents two great themes in Latin America in 2006 - profound discontent that a rising tide of economic prosperity is not helping the poor, and the perpetual South American hope that a strong man might be able to solve their problems.

But his precise political affiliation is hard to pin down. He is regarded as another member of the "awkward squad" of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia and Fidel Castro in Cuba. Awkward, at least, in the eyes of the United States. Possibly, he might join the more amenable "soft left" of Brazil, Argentina and Chile.

The guidebooks say doing something strenuous after flying from sea level in Lima to 3500m in Cusco will bring on altitude sickness.

Humala has obviously never read the guidebooks. He trots out of the airport, begins a tour, a series of speeches and walkabouts. The big rally is at dusk on the steps of Cusco's Catholic Cathedral. It's raining hard. The crowd is many thousands strong.

Humala bounds across the stage, his T-shirt sodden, telling Peruvians there's a difference between the wet weather and the world economy. When it rains, everybody gets wet. With globalisation, the wealth rains on the rich and the poor get nothing. The crowd - mainly indigenous, mainly poor - goes wild at his bombast.

I meet Humala in a Spanish colonial hotel. There's a chess set on the bar. The pieces are Incas and Conquistadors. I suggest a game, and he chooses the Incas.

So how would it change Peru, I ask Humala, if he becomes president?

"Peru has been robbed of its democracy," he says. "The economic model that's been followed has given economic growth but it hasn't allowed the country to develop. We're going to ... concentrate on policies that look toward development."

This is a neat response to those who point out that Peru's GDP has risen consistently in the past few years. Humala concedes this point, but says life for the poor is no better.

"Everyone in Peru wants change. They want a new message as well as a new messenger." I suggest his rhetoric scares off investors, most notably big American investors, and alienates his country from the United States.

"My responsibility as a Peruvian has nothing to do with Bush," he says.

"I am not at all anti-American. Peru has to work on policies in hand with the US. We need to agree on issues like the farming of the coca leaf, drug trafficking and biodiversity ... defending development in my country doesn't mean I am right-wing or left-wing. These definitions are meaningless since the end of the Cold War.

"What we have to do is make a better system by building on the institutions we have. We need to make sure the natural resources we have benefit the people. I am not saying that multinational companies should be stopped from making a profit, but there should be a ... redistribution of wealth."

So, does he agree with Chavez who suggests Bush is worse than Hitler?

"I'd just say the situations in our two countries - Venezuela and Peru - are different," Humala says. "The fact that we have an important agenda of change here doesn't mean we want to join in the ideological conflict between Venezuela and the US."

In the past 100 years, the US has undermined or overthrown about 40 Latin American governments. The US invaded Panama in 1989 to arrest the drug runner Manuel Noriega. The following year US "Contra" proxies in Nicaragua undermined the Sandinista Government of Daniel Ortega.

Despite its current focus on Iraq and Iran, the Bush Administration has begun to wake up to rising anti-Americanism in its own back yard.

"What worries me is how the US can pass the boundaries of international law and interfere physically and militarily in other countries."

So, why does Humala keep going on about the evils of globalisation, when Peru has to trade with the world to raise everyone's living standards?

"Ideological confrontations of left and right in Peru are over," he says.

"That all came to an end when the Cold War finished but the [American] empire that won has built up a process of capitalist globalisation.

"We need to defend our country from being totally globalised. They're breaking into our sovereignty and weakening our national industries. The neo-liberal model hasn't benefited normal Peruvian families."

Will he win the presidency? He certainly believes so - he promised our next game of chess would be inside the presidential palace in Lima.* Gavin Esler is a BBC presenter.

Gunning for the presidency

With 89 per cent of votes from the first round on April 9 counted, Ollanta Humala was in first place with 30.9 per cent.

Left-leaning former president Alan Garcia had 24.38 per cent and conservative Lourdes Flores edged up to 23.53 per cent.

Peruvian law mandates a second round between the two top candidates if no one gets more than 50 per cent.

Flores hopes about two thirds of an as-yet uncounted 300,000 expatriate Peruvian votes will back her party and propel her into second place for the runoff.

- INDEPENDENT, REUTERS

In case we weren't scared enough...

Peruvian Front-Runner's Family an Issue
Apr 5, 2006

By MONTE HAYES
Associated Press Writer

LIMA, Peru

Presidential front-runner Ollanta Humala admires a former dictator and once launched a military uprising himself. He promises heavy state intervention in a free-market economy and wants to end U.S.-backed eradication of Peru's coca crop.

But with national elections set for Sunday, what really scares some people is his family. His father is a Marxist who praises Hitler. His mother suggested that gunning down homosexuals would reduce immorality.

One brother is in jail awaiting trial for an armed revolt. Another brother is running against him for president, although Ulises Humala's racist platform advocating second-class status for the light-skinned elite has drawn him less than 1 percent support.

Ollanta Humala -who holds a narrow lead over Lourdes Flores, a pro-free-market former congresswoman - insists he harbors none of the intolerance that characterizes his clan.

"I'm not homophobic," the 43-year-old retired army lieutenant colonel said during a recent meeting with foreign correspondents. "In the 21st century, I don't think anyone should be discriminated against for such preferences or options, whatever word you want to use."

But many Peruvians are skeptical.

"He can't be believed," said Fernando Rospigliosi, a former interior minister. "He's a man who lies systematically."

Ollanta Humala is widely perceived as part of a rising tide of leftist leaders in Latin America responding to widespread discontent with free-market policies seen to have done little for the poor, and with the discredited political class that implemented them.

He is closely allied with Venezuela's populist President Hugo Chavez, another former military man who led a revolt as a precursor to running for elected office, and with Bolivia's recently elected socialist President Evo Morales, a coca-leaf farmer who like Humala supports and end to U.S.-backed coca eradication.

How much influence the Humala clan would have in Ollanta's presidency remains unclear.

His jailed brother, Antauro, who joined Ollanta in a short-lived military uprising against former President Alberto Fujimori in 2000, recently said his father would have a strong role.

"My father is a fundamentalist of pure reason," he said. "If you're talking about public posts for him, that is unimportant, as it is for the rest of the family. Our strength is ideology. He is an ideological patriarch of the Peruvian people, whose weight is greater than that of the combined official team."

Ollanta dissociated himself from the declarations and has shown increasing annoyance with questions about his family.

"What my parents say is their business," he insisted last week. "They're not running for anything. They don't belong to my party and they're not going to be part of my government."

But TV talk show host Jaime Bayly noted that Ollanta for three years let Antauro publish a newspaper named "Ollanta" that preached violence against minorities.

"If he really repudiated those ideas, he should have demanded that his brother withdraw his name from the publication, but he didn't," Bayly said.

Bayly, who is bisexual, says he has seen the family's intolerance firsthand. He said that when he invited Humala's parents onto his show, the father responded: "Tell that queer we're not going to his program and when we're in the government, we're going to have him shot."

A few days later, Humala's mother, Elena Tasso, was quoted by the Expreso newspaper as saying: "I bet if they shot two homosexuals, you would see less immorality in the streets."

Antauro claims he acted on Ollanta's orders in leading an uprising last year in an Andean town that left four police officers dead, a charge Ollanta denies.

Several weeks ago, Antauro gave a taped statement to a radio station saying President Alejandro Toledo, his wife and Peru's 120 congressmen should be executed by firing squads for treason. He also said "revolutionary measures" would begin July 28, the day Peru's next elected government will take office.

Antauro is running from jail for congress; if elected he would enjoy immunity from prosecution for his uprising.

Ollanta brushed off his brother's prediction, calling him "crazy."

But he has been evasive about accusations linking him to other violence. Villagers in eastern Peru say he ordered the torture and killing of suspected leftist guerrilla sympathizers in 1992, when he commanded a jungle counterinsurgency base. Humala calls the charges a smear campaign.

The Humalas say they prepared their seven children from a young age to be revolutionaries. At dinner, each child had to discuss some aspect of Peruvian history from a nationalist viewpoint.

The 75-year-old patriarch, Isaac Humala, says he is a descendant of Inca royalty and always hoped his children would transform Peru into a nation dominated by its "copper-skinned" majority of Indians and mestizos, stripping power from the white elite.

He has said he raised his children to take power _ if necessary through a military coup and that is why he sent two of his sons to a military academy.

"If I command 60, 100 or 1,000 armed men, I can take the palace and from the palace impose ethno-nationalism," he said, referring to the racial creed he preaches.



Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com

Makin' daddy proud...

Keiko amplía su ventaja como la congresista más votada por Lima


Según avanza el escrutinio de los votos realizados en Lima para determinar los representantes del departamento al Congreso de la República, se confirma el abrumador apoyo recibido por Keiko Fujimori, quien encabeza la lista de la agrupación política Alianza para el Futuro.

El reciente informe proporcionado por la Oficina Nacional de Procesos Electorales (ONPE), al 53,911%, da los siguientes resultados:

Nombre~ Partido~ Nro. de votos

Keiko Fujimori
Alianza para el Futuro
360.260


Carlos Bruce
Perú Posible
118.620


Mercedes Cabanillas
Partido Aprista Peruano
103.317


Gabriela Pérez Del Solar
Unidad Nacional
80.280


Alberto Andrade
Frente de Centro
79.639


Walter Menchola
Unidad Nacional
51.432


Carlos Torres Caro
Unión por el Perú
48,487


Jorge del Castillo
Partido Aprista Peruano
46.775


David Waisman
Perú Posible
45.418

ONPE: Resultados finales se conocerán a fin de mes

A una semana de las elecciones del 9 de abril, la jefa de la ONPE, Magdalena Chu, informó que ya tienen prácticamente el 100% de las actas recibidas de todo el territorio nacional y agregó que solo faltan las actas del extranjero.



En declaraciones al programa "Cuarto Poder", dijo que esta demora se debe a los días feriados por Semana Santa, en que, por ejemplo, no trabajó la empresa DHL, encargada de enviar las actas.


Siguiendo con su recuento, señaló que falta computar el 11%, "donde no necesariamente los votos están cuestionados", pero advirtió que solo falta recibir menos del 1%, porque el resto son actas observadas que están siendo elevadas a los JEE.


Asimismo, precisó que estas elecciones han sido de una alta participación de la ciudadanía en el Perú y en el extranjero, lo que calificó como un acto de educación y conciencia cívica.


Al ser cuestionada sobre su estimación de que en tres semanas ya estaría completado el cómputo, dijo que el JNE y el JEE han tomado las providencias del caso para darle celeridad al proceso.


De otro lado, estimó que la segunda vuelta electoral se llevaría a cabo el último domingo de mayo o el primer domingo de junio. "Será un proceso más sencillo porque solo habrá dos candidatos". Finalmente, dijo que a fin de mes ya se podría saber oficialmente quién pasará a la segunda vuelta.

Solo 89 mil votos separan a García de Flores Nano

No cabe duda que los próximos días estarán cargados de mucho suspenso en la espera de conocer los resultados oficiales de las elecciones generales. Según la más reciente actualización de la Oficina Nacional de Procesos Electorales (ONPE) al 90,36% Alan García (Apra) alcanza el 24,35% de los votos escrutados, mientras que Lourdes Flores (UN) tiene 23,56% con lo cual la diferencia entre ambos se reduce ahora a 89.396 votos válidos (0,79%). Ollanta Humala (UPP) se mantiene en el primer lugar con 30,84%.


Se informó además que el total de actas impugnadas hasta el momento es de 8.138, lo cual equivale a 1.627.006 votos.


Asimismo, se anunció que el escrutinio de votos en el extranjero se encuentra avanzado al 49,88%. De este total, el 58,81% favorece la candidatura de Flores Nano; 17,27% apoya a García Pérez y el 11,89% votó por Humala Tasso.


A continuación más detalles sobre esta nueva actualización


Partido ~ Nro. de votos ~ % Votos válidos
Alianza por el Futuro 839.973 ~ 7,426%
Frente de Centro 653.180 ~ 5,775%
Restauración Nacional 495.093 ~ 4,377%

Total de votos válidos 11.310.885 100,000%

Votos blancos
1.588.712

Votos nulos
360.976

Votos impugnados
1.021

Total de votos emitidos
13.261.594

Peruvian Front-Runner Humala Worries Many

Wednesday April 12, 2006 8:16 AM

By FRANK BAJAK

Associated Press Writer

LIMA, Peru (AP) - Ollanta Humala, the upstart populist who won the most votes in the first round of Peru's presidential elections, is a great admirer of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

The two have a lot in common: Their political base resides in poor minorities disillusioned with a legacy of corrupt politicians. And, of course, both are career military men, unaccustomed to compromise.

Both also esteem the late Peruvian Gen. Juan Velasco, whose 1968-75 leftist dictatorship expropriated land from the wealthy, seized the media and drove away foreign investment.

That's precisely what worries defenders of Peruvian democracy - not to mention U.S. officials, who've become regular targets of Chavez's ``anti-imperialist'' vitriol.

Humala, whose opponent in an expected June runoff remained unclear Tuesday as ballot-counting continued, vows to respect freedom of speech and private property.

But many believe his moderate tone, particularly now that he's advanced to the runoff, to be a smokescreen. Chavez waited a few years after his 1998 election to begin fomenting class war and exacting higher royalties from foreign oil companies.

Humala, 43, courted Peru's poor and terrified its rich as he rose to prominence in the last eight months, promising to redistribute the country's wealth more equitably.

On Sunday, he won 31 percent of the vote, according to official results with 85 percent of vote counted. It was looking increasingly likely his runoff opponent would be Alan Garcia, a center-leftist former president, who was running second with 24.7 percent.

Ex-congresswoman Lourdes Flores was third with 23.5 percent. Widely seen as the candidate of the rich, Flores would have a tough time defeating Humala in a second round.

Humala's political base is the country's Indian and mestizo majority, especially Quechua-speaking highlanders who've been discriminated against for centuries by the country's European-descended political elite.

It was precisely those people in whose name Velasco subverted democracy. In December, Humala praised Velasco for ``returning dignity to the people who lived in the Andes. ... Velasco broke the semi-feudal system.''

Chavez has been a fan of Velasco ever since he met the dictator in Peru in 1974 as a visiting cadet. For years, he carried around a little blue book of Velasco's teachings that the Peruvian strongman gave him. Chavez even chose blue for the cover of Venezuela's rewritten constitution in Velasco's honor.

But Velasco's military dictatorship was a disaster by other measures. For one, it saw per capita public debt rise fivefold. And Peru, which previously had a trade surplus, became dependent on agricultural imports to feed its people.

Chavez's detractors say his government is a bully that has subverted democracy and persecuted the opposition - claims Chavez vociferously denies.

Many analysts believe Humala, based on his militarist upbringing and on anti-white statements his family has made, would do the same. They are particularly worried about accusations he oversaw human rights abuses while commanding a jungle counterinsurgency base in 1992, allegations Humala denies.

The U.S. State Department has held its tongue on Humala's first-place showing Sunday.

But Roger Noriega, the Bush administration's former top diplomat for Latin America, expressed worry.

``Humala apparently has very little to offer in terms of a constructive agenda,'' Noriega said in a telephone interview. ``I think there is a lot of concern that he would be the sort of polarizing populist that Chavez has been in Venezuela.''

Humala didn't calm those fears with an interview he gave Monday to Venezuela's state-run TeleSur network. ``I have immense respect for Chavez,'' he said. ``I think he's carrying out a process, perhaps the word is heroic, nationalist, patriotic.''

Garcia leads race for runoff spot in Peru vote

12 April 2006

LIMA, Peru - Left-leaning former President Alan Garcia, whose rule ended in economic ruin, led his pro-business rival on Tuesday in a battle for a runoff spot in Peru’s election.


With more than 85 percent of Sunday’s vote counted, nationalist former army commander Ollanta Humala was first with 30.9 percent and was poised to advance to a May or early June runoff since no candidate won a majority.

Garcia, whose 1985-1990 presidency was plagued by food shortages and 7,000 percent inflation, was second with 24.6 percent. Flores, a conservative pro-business lawyer favored by international investors and bidding to become Peru’s first female leader, trailed in third with 23.5 percent.

“I’m convinced that as the hours go by, the distance between myself (and Flores) will increase,” Garcia said.

Election officials said it could take up to 20 days to determine the second-place finisher. The runoff must take place within 30 days after the final official result is announced.

Peruvians could end up choosing between two leftists and align Peru with a regional leftward shift that has seen leaders take power challenging US trade and diplomatic policies.

“What’s Peru coming to when we’ve got to choose between two crazy leftists for president?” asked hairdresser Daniella Arroyo, who like many middle-class Peruvians was disheartened with the results.

Pre-election polls showed Humala, 43, would face a tight runoff against Garcia and was likely to lose against Flores.

Officials worked to tally votes for a third day as ballots were collected from remote areas and Peruvians living abroad.

“Garcia is very confident and he has every right to be,” said Ernesto Velit, a political science professor at San Marcos University in Lima. “There are still votes to be counted from the rural communities, and those are not votes for Flores.”

Flores questioned the validity of the vote count, saying some 7,000 vote-tally sheets had not been included due to legal challenges and computer problems.

“My feeling is that we have won,” she said. Flores is expected to get strong support from expatriate voters, mainly Peruvians living in the United States.

A defeat for Flores, a 46-year-old lawyer, would be particularly bitter because she narrowly lost to Garcia in the race for a runoff place in the 2001 elections.

Garcia-Humala run off raises alarm

Garcia, 56, has recast himself as a moderate who says he has dropped his fiery anti-imperialist rhetoric that made him one of Latin America’s most flamboyant leaders in the 1980s.

But a Garcia-Humala runoff has alarmed investors. Both have promised to rewrite contracts with foreign companies and levy new taxes on Peru’s key mining industry.

Lima’s stock market closed down almost 2 percent on Tuesday and the sol currency slipped 0.5 percent to 3.33 soles a dollar on the election concerns.

Peru’s bond spreads, a reflection of country risk, widened 7 basis points over US Treasuries to 196 points on the JP Morgan Emerging Markets Bond Index Plus (EMBI+). Total returns fell 0.31 percent.

But investors took comfort in Humala’s lower-than-expected lead, saying it lessened his chances of winning a runoff vote.

“Garcia would have a very strong chance of defeating Humala in the second round, where he would likely get the vast majority of Flores’s votes,” said Franco Uccelli, an analyst at Bear Stearns. “We believe that Garcia will not mess with (Peru’s) economic model that is apparently working.”

That reading on the election helped Peru’s global bond, which is due in 2025 and considered the country’s benchmark, rise 2.063 to bid 98.063 and to yield 7.541 percent.

García continúa con ventaja superior al 1% ante Flores

Actualizado a las 11:26:08 AM
Miércoles, 12 de abril de 2006

Según avanza el porcentaje de actas escrutadas por la Oficina Nacional de Procesos Electorales (ONPE), el candidato presidencial del Partido Aprista Peruano continúa con una interesante ventaja frente a su competidora de Unidad Nacional. La última actualización, al 87,66%, Ollanta Humala (UPP) se mantiene en la primera posición con el 30,96% de los votos; Alan García sigue segundo con 24,44% y en el tercer lugar continúa Lourdes Flores con 23,37%.

Según este último reporte Humala Tasso obtiene 3 millones 423 mil 886 votos, García Pérez 2 millones 702 mil 130 votos y Flores Nano 2 millones 584 mil 519 votos. La diferencia entre los líderes del APRA y Unidad Nacional es de 117 mil 611 votos.


En cuarto lugar se ubica Martha Chávez (Alianza por el Futuro) con 7,472% de los votos válidos, seguida por Valentín Paniagua (Frente de Centro) con 5,760% y Humberto Lay (Restauración Nacional) con 4,345%.

Fujimori Gets Married (in Prison)

Last Updated: Thursday, 6 April 2006, 10:25 GMT 11:25 UK

courtesy the BBC

Peru's ex-President, Alberto Fujimori, who is currently under arrest in Chile, has married his long-term Japanese girlfriend from his detention centre.

Mr Fujimori married Japanese hotel magnate Satomi Kataoka under Japanese law after the required documents were filed in Tokyo.

He issued a statement saying the day had been "the happiest of his life".

Mr Fujimori is awaiting an extradition trial to Peru, where he faces corruption and human rights charges.

Ms Kataoka has now travelled to Peru for the country's presidential and congressional elections on Sunday, where her stepdaughter, Keiko Fujimori, is running for Congress.

Mr Fujimori - who has dual Japanese-Peruvian nationality - fled to Japan in 2000 amid a corruption scandal.

He travelled to Chile last year, hoping to launch a new bid for the Peruvian presidency in this year's elections.

He was arrested there at the request of the Peruvian authorities.

He governed Peru for a decade in the 1990s, during which time he divorced his wife Susana Higuchi after dismissing her as first lady in favour of their daughter.