{"id":698,"date":"2006-03-22T04:53:31","date_gmt":"2006-03-22T12:53:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/2006\/03\/22\/financial-times-peru-elite-braces-for-possible-humala-victory\/"},"modified":"2006-03-22T04:53:31","modified_gmt":"2006-03-22T12:53:31","slug":"financial-times-peru-elite-braces-for-possible-humala-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/2006\/03\/22\/financial-times-peru-elite-braces-for-possible-humala-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Financial Times: Peru Elite Braces for Possible Humala Victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peru elite braces for possible Humala victory<\/a>
\nBy Richard Lapper and Hal Weitzman in Lima
\nFinancial Times Americas, March 21 2006 17:39<\/strong>
\n“The outcome of the country\u2019s general election on April 9 may be uncertain, but many within Lima\u2019s political and business elite are planning for a Humala victory” says the Financial Times. “A proponent of higher taxes and greater state involvement in the economy, Mr Humala is not a natural friend of business. But while some businessmen cling to hopes of a more traditional candidate winning, others are jockeying for position and trying to shape the policies of the next government.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peru elite braces for possible Humala victory<\/a>
\nBy Richard Lapper and Hal Weitzman in Lima
\nFinancial Times Americas, March 21 2006 17:39<\/strong>
\nAt a corner table in an exclusive coffee house in Miraflores, an upmarket suburb of Lima, an elderly man holds court. Over cappuccinos and exotic fruit salad, two entrepreneurs are telling him about the benefits of state funding for the arts.
\nThe man, an aide to Ollanta Humala, the radical nationalist frontrunner in Peru\u2019s presidential race, listens quietly to the pitch but makes no promises. He is sympathetic to the idea, he says, but reducing poverty will be Mr Humala\u2019s main priority.
\nThe outcome of the country\u2019s general election on April 9 may be uncertain, but many within Lima\u2019s political and business elite are planning for a Humala victory. A proponent of higher taxes and greater state involvement in the economy, Mr Humala is not a natural friend of business. But while some businessmen cling to hopes of a more traditional candidate winning, others are jockeying for position and trying to shape the policies of the next government.
\nEnrique Ghersi, a lawyer and former congressman, expects the lobbying effort to intensify. \u201cThe entrepreneurial class has no ideology, only interests,\u201d he says. \u201cThey think Humala will protect national industries and raise tariffs.\u201d
\nMr Humala leads Lourdes Flores, the conservative free-marketeer who is his main rival, by four points, according to the most recent poll by Apoyo, a respected pollster. But as the election draws closer his campaign is gathering steam, while hers is faltering. Alan Garc\u00eda, the controversial former president, is trailing in third place.
\nMuch depends on the roughly 20 per cent of voters who are undecided. Most of them are expected to drift towards Mr Humala. Additionally, the polls fail to reach 20 per cent of voters in the poorest and most isolated areas of the country. They too are likely to be attracted to his anti-systemic platform.
\n\u201cThe message is resonating,\u201d says a European diplomat in Lima. \u201cA year ago, we thought he was too wild to get elected but we were wrong. The guy enjoys a lot of support from people who feel they have nothing to lose.\u201d
\nLuis Benavente, a pollster at the University of Lima, forecasts the election will mirror the results of recent contests in Bolivia and Costa Rica, in which radical populists exceeded all expectations. \u201cHumala\u2019s rise looks unstoppable,\u201d he says.
\nIf Mr Humala wins, it would be part of an established pattern of victory for \u201coutsiders\u201d. Peru\u2019s political elites have backed the wrong horse in almost all national elections since 1980.
\nThis time around, the traditional parties have not inspired the electorate. Ms Flores made an early mistake by picking an elderly white businessman as her running-mate, reinforcing the common view of her as a defender of vested interests. Mr Garc\u00eda, whose administration left office in 1990 amid economic and political chaos, is widely mistrusted. Forty per cent of the electorate say they would not vote for him under any circumstances.
\nOne of these two will go into a second round, but on present form it will be a very tall order for either to halt Mr Humala\u2019s bandwagon. Some speculate that the nationalist could even win the more than 50 per cent necessary to claim the presidency outright in the first round.
\nAlthough Peru\u2019s economy has grown by an average of more than 4 per cent in recent years, but that has not created enough jobs for its expanding workforce. Poverty levels are among the highest in the region – about half the population earns less than $2 a day.
\nThis has produced a rich vein of resentment, particularly outside the capital. On a dusty road near Yangas, an agricultural town in the Andean foothills some 60km north-east of Lima, the evidence of support for Mr Humala is everywhere. Some youths are painting \u201cOllanta presidente\u201d on the wall of an abandoned farm building by the side of the road. \u201cWe want a change of system,\u201d says Julio Diaz, an unemployed Humala activist supervising their work. \u201cThere\u2019s so much neglect here. Other politicians have used us in the past.\u201d
\nPolls suggest Ms Flores scores well with voters on social issues, but pledges by Mr Humala, a former army officer, to clamp down on crime and corruption are popular. He has evoked the memory of the left-leaning military government of Gen Juan Velasco Alvarado from 1968-75, alarming the middle classes. \u201cThere\u2019s very little reassuring in Humala\u2019s discourse,\u201d says the European diplomat. \u201cHis general philosophy is to look backwards. The least bad thing that will happen with him is that the country would be treading water.\u201d
\nBut the appeal to the past evokes a fond nostalgia among the rural poor for the Velasco period\u2019s social reforms. \u201cIn the days before Velasco, this whole area belonged to one landowner, and all the community worked for him,\u201d says Mois\u00e9s Cotrina, a bus driver in Yangas. \u201cThe rich are frightened of Humala, just like they were frightened of Velasco.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1305,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7951],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-parties"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}