Doubtful and divided Peru prepares to vote

Peru prepared for a difficult presidential vote today, between the daughter of an authoritarian ex-president and a nationalist ex-military man, in which many will choose the “lesser of two evils”.

Ollanta Humala, a 48-year-old leftist whom opponents link to Venezuelan anti-liberal leader Hugo Chavez, and Keiko Fujimori, a 36-year-old right-wing lawmaker, were virtually tied in the latest opinion polls, which differed on who was ahead.

Many voters said they would choose the person they disliked the least after the two most extreme candidates made it through a first round in April.

Both Fujimori and Humala drew support with promises to help more than one third of the population of some 29 million still living in poverty despite a decade of record growth on the back of rich mineral exports.

Security and corruption were also key issues as the campaign polarised in the second round.

Fujimori campaigned in the shadow of her notorious father Alberto Fujimori, who is serving a 25-year jail sentence for corruption and rights abuses under a clampdown on leftist Shining Path guerrillas during his 1990-2000 rule.

Surrounded by many of his allies, she failed to convince detractors that she would not follow in his footsteps and possibly seek to free him, after serving as a 19-year-old first lady following her parents’ separation.

But she wooed investors, most of the media and conservative ex-presidential candidates with promises of sticking to the model of free-market economics, which has accompanied an unprecedented decade of growth.

Humala, who is of Indian origin like 80 per cent of Peruvians, promised a fairer distribution of the country’s riches through government assistance, particularly in Andean provinces where poverty reaches 60 per cent.

He supported a windfall tax for mining companies and sent shockwaves through the stock exchange with talk of increasing government control of them or changing the constitution.

Beyond their programmes, both candidates sought to remove doubts about their credibility as they multiplied attacks on each other in the run-up to the vote to replace President Alan Garcia.

Fujimori used former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani to help reassure on security and Peruvian ex-prime minister and World Bank economist Pedro Pablo Kuczynski to help boost her credentials.

Humala garnered support from artists and intellectuals repelled by the idea of a return of the Fujimori dynasty, such as Nobel Prize-winning author Mario Vargos Llosa, a former presidential candidate who lost to Fujimori in 1990.

Voter dilemmas were apparent among residents of the populous Lima district of San Juan de Lurigancho on the eve of the election.

“Fujimori won’t respect her promises, just like her father didn’t. He promised everything and then killed people,” said 68-year-old Maria Teodora Ocampo, who set up a community credit programme after she lost her job at a tuna canning factory during Alberto Fujimori’s presidency.

“Humala may not meet his promises, but at least he’s new.”