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04/18/2006:
"Ollanta Humala: Peru’s Next President?"
The first round of Peru's presidential election makes maverick nationalist Ollanta Humala the favourite.The news that Ollanta Humala was leading in the opinion polls, ahead of Peru's first-round presidential elections on Sunday 9 April, set alarm bells ringing in Washington and sent the stock-exchange in Lima tumbling.
Still, not even a furious smear campaign by his opponents has done anything to dent the popularity of Humala, an ex-army lieutenant-colonel, self-styled nationalist and acknowledged protégé of Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez. On the contrary, the more the establishment pounds him, the more popular he becomes.
As predicted Humala won Sunday’s vote with around 30% of the ballots. This is well short of the 50% needed for an outright win so a run-off election will be held on 7 May. What is still unclear is who his opponent will be. The conservative candidate, Lourdes Flores, and the former president and centre-left candidate, Alan García, are technically tied for second place with around 25% of the vote each. It will take days before all the ballots are counted and a second place winner announced. If Flores does go through, all eyes will be on García to see whether he endorses either of his rivals.
Humala, charismatic and forceful, is a clean-cut, fit, 43-year-old with an attractive wife and two children. He has spent over twenty years in the army, holds a master's degree in political science, and both he and his wife, Nadine Heredia, are enrolled as doctoral students at the Sorbonne. Humala is less bombastic than his mentor Chávez, and more articulate than his soulmate, Bolivia's new president, Evo Morales. He counts among his heroes the French soldier-statesman Charles de Gaulle and Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, founder of Peru's reformist Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (American Popular Revolutionary Alliance [Apra]) and a leading proponent of nationalist revolutions in Latin America.
The world first heard of Humala in October 2000, when he and his brother Antauro led a failed military rebellion against the authoritarian then-president Alberto Fujimori. (Fujimori fled Peru for Japan in 2000 in the face of scandal and instability, and is currently being held in Chile as Peru seeks his extradition.) In 2004, Antauro – who is now in prison – led a second, equally ill-planned, uprising against Peru's current president, Alejandro Toledo.
The two renegade brothers are the sons of Isaac Humala, a labour lawyer, former communist and the founder of etnocacerismo – an indigenous nationalist doctrine with slightly fascist overtones. (The Peruvian press had a field day recently when Ollanta's mother called for homosexuals to be shot.) Humala, who categorically denies being homophobic, has abandoned etnocacerismo and tried to distance himself from his eccentric family. His nationalism is now defined as a belief that those excluded from Peruvian political and economic life – for reasons of class, ethnic background or gender – should become fully empowered citizens. "In some cases they call it leftist or socialist, others call it indigenismo. In Peru we call it nationalism", he says. "What we are looking for is an alternative to the neo-liberal model."
upsidedownworld.org
New Challenge to U.S. Drug Policy in Andes
LIMA, Peru -- The front-running presidential candidate in Peru, having pledged to put a stop to coca eradication, represents the latest challenge to a regional U.S.-financed counternarcotics effort that shows signs of fraying at its edges, according to U.S. and South American analysts.
Like the recently elected Bolivian president, Evo Morales, Ollanta Humala has campaigned against the coca eradication programs that are central to an anti-drug plan in the Andes. Humala says much of the coca being cultivated is being used in teas and traditional medicines, not being turned into cocaine.
"We're going to protect the coca grower, and we're going to stop the forced eradication of their crops," he said during a rally last month, La Republica newspaper reported. "It must be understood that there are more than 30,000 families that cultivate coca leaf, and no government has ever protected them."
The United States has poured about $5 billion into an Andean anti-drug plan since 2000, including about $720 million in Peru. But if Humala wins the decisive second-round election, to be held in May or early June, the United States' main ally in its eradication efforts -- Colombia -- will stand as a virtual island in the Andes, surrounded by countries with governments critical of Washington's policies. If continued breakdowns in cooperation occur in Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia or Ecuador, some U.S. officials say they fear that progress made to fight coca cultivation in Colombia could be undermined as production migrates across its borders.
Is that truly what they fear?
