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Humala Wins Peru's Presidential Runoff - by Stephen Lendman
On April 10, Ollanta Humala received most support among five presidential candidates, but not a majority. Eliminated were former neoliberal President Alejandro Toledo, his former economic minister and Lima mayor Luis Castaneda Lossio, and former Prime Minister Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.
Discredited and now imprisoned former President Alberto Fujimori's daughter Keiko proceeded to a runoff with him.
On June 6, New York Times writer Simon Romero headlined, "Ex-Officer Set to Win Narrow Victory in Peru," saying:
Incomplete returns show him heading for victory, rebuking Peru's "economic model that has driven (its) robust growth, (but left) millions of (its) citizens....mired in poverty...."
Washington Post writer Juan Forero called it an "unhappy choice," saying winner Humala openly admires "Venezuela's firebrand president, Hugo Chavez," then quoted Inter-American Dialogue head Michael Shifter claiming neither candidate is "committed to democracy."
Reuters said "(l)eftwing former army (Lt. Col.) Ollanta Humala claimed victory" in Sunday's elections, "strik(ing) a conciliatory tone as investors and the opposition worry he will ruin a long economic boom."
Wall Street Journal writer Matt Moffett said his win "rais(es) a cloud of uncertainty over what has been one of the world's most dynamic economies" by depriving Peru's poor for its rich as well as Western business interests.
Succeeding incumbent Alan Garcia, Xinhua's English language site said independent election monitors declared Humala the winner, getting over a 51% majority with more than 90% of ballots counted. Exit polls, in fact, had him winning with over 52%.
On July 28, he'll be inaugurated for a five-year term until 2016. How center-left he'll govern is very much in doubt given the record of others in the region, including Brazil's Lula da Silva, Bolivia's Evo Morales, and others pursuing corporate friendly agendas.
In fact, in his book "Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire," James Petras said former unionist leader Lula actually extended his predecessor's privatizations and restrictive budget policies.
Instead of change, he delivered betrayal. Even before elected, he signed a letter of understanding with the IMF, promising business as usual by agreeing to full debt service, as well as pro-business neoliberal policies.
Then as president, he cut public employee pensions 30%. His agrarian policy subsidized agribusiness. He didn't redistribute land to Brazil's Landless Workers Movement (MST) as promised and cut spending for health and education. He also appointed right-wing bankers and other corporate executives to key posts, including economic and financial ones. As a result, Petras said he fit "the profile of a right-wing neoliberal politician," not a populist one.
Morales also painfully disappointed by maintaining neoliberal fiscal austerity, economic stability, and other pro-corporate policies. Other regional leaders followed similar agendas, including Ecuador's Correa and Argentina's Nestor Kirchner, failing to deliver real change.
So why expect Humala to govern more like Chavez, combining participatory social democracy with business friendly policies. After July, Peruvians will know for sure what his call for "change" and "order" means as president, especially after he models himself after Lula, suggesting business as usual in office, not a radical shift left.
Representing the Gana Peru nationalist party, he appealed to the country's poor, harmed by years of neoliberal harshness. In contrast, his opponent, Keiko Fujimori, openly endorsed free market privatizations, deregulation, and eliminating labor rights to attract foreign investment, much like her father in the 1990s.
