Lima – Former Peruvian President Alan Garcia said that the fact that he is the “lesser of two evils” in the country’s presidential runoff, where he is facing nationalist Ollanta Humala, would benefit him in attracting votes.
In an interview published Sunday in the daily La Republica, Garcia said that many of the people who voted for conservative Lourdes Flores or for former President Valentin Paniagua in the first electoral round feel that he is the “lesser of two evils,” a designation that he added does not “flatter” him.
However, in practical terms, the Peruvian Aprista Party candidate, who governed the country from 1985-90, “it’s a necessity and I think that it will wind up asserting itself” in the balloting.
Garcia said that he has four weeks until the June 4 runoff to “convince people (who voted for Humala in the first round) that change is possible without exaggerations.”
Humala received 30 percent of the vote to Garcia’s 24 percent in the April 9 first round balloting.
The former president said that “the basic battle will come in the south” of Peru, where historically his party has garnered only sparse support and which is currently one of Humala’s bastions.
With regard to the latest voter intention polls, which show him to be the favorite in the runoff, Garcia said that the drop in support for Humala had come as a result of the attacks launched against him – Garcia – by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez which had sparked a bilateral diplomatic crisis.
Chavez had expressed his support for Humala, the candidate of the Union for Peru Party, but the latter had responded that he did not accept that “sponsorship.”
In an interview with the daily El Comercio appearing on Sunday, Humala rejected the alleged foreign interference in the election process, saying that “Chavez can say what he wants, but no judge can judge him here.”
Meanwhile, Humala said that the statements of Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo that the runoff would be a contest between “democracy and authoritarianism” – embodied by Garcia and Humala, respectively – amounted to an electoral offense.
The former army officer told the newspaper that an “impunity pact” between Toledo and Garcia was being arranged so that the latter would protect the outgoing president.
Humala rejected the announcement by one of his party’s legislators that Chavez had offered to finance water and sewer projects in Peru to the tune of $3.5 billion if Humala won the runoff.
The nationalist candidate insisted that, if elected, his government would invest in Peru’s infrastructure and cover the country’s $25 billion deficit through private pension funds and by revising the contracts between the state and foreign firms operating here.
In addition, he said that no foreign businessmen operating in Peru had said they were planning to withdraw from the country if he won, despite his proposal to adjust their contracts in the energy sector.
Meanwhile, Humala’s father Isaac met with the leader of Venezuela’s Tupamaro Revolutionary Movement, Jose Pinto, after the first electoral round to define his “political plans.”
Television channel Frecuencia Latina’s program “Reporte Semanal” broadcast an interview with Pinto on Sunday in which he confirmed his meeting with the elder Humala three weeks ago in Caracas, saying that they had analyzed the ideological stance of the Peruvian candidate’s circle of advisers and close supporters.
Pinto, whose party supports Chavez, took advantage of the interview to ask Ollanta Humala to free all Peru’s “political prisoners” if he wins the runoff election.
Isaac Humala kept a low profile during the last stretch before the first round vote on April 9 after a series of explosive statements he had made caused serious problems for his son. EFE
