Lima – Peruvians are voting Sunday in a presidential runoff election that pits a former head of state whose term ended with the Andean nation’s economy in tatters and a nationalist former coup leader.
Alan Garcia, who served as president from 1985 to 1990, and Ollanta Humala, a retired army colonel who led a coup nearly six years ago, both cast their ballots in the capital and made only brief comments to the press.
Humala and his wife, Nadine Heredia, voted at Lima’s Ricardo Palma University under tight security.
The 43-year-old nationalist candidate said he expected “everything to be transparent” and that there would be “no problems” in the runoff election.
After voting, Humala got into his car quickly and left without speaking with reporters.
Garcia, for his part, voted at a polling place in the capital’s Miraflores neighborhood and was cheered by supporters.
He cast his ballot but did not make any public statements.
Earlier in the day, during a breakfast with Peruvian and foreign reporters at his campaign headquarters, Garcia said he was not the “lesser of two evils,” as some observers have claimed, but “the useful vote” for his countrymen.
Garcia, who was accompanied by his wife and children, told the reporters that Sunday would be a “day of affirming democracy” and he hoped to “open a chapter of greater economic growth” for Peru.
More than 16.4 million people are eligible to vote in the contest between Garcia, of the Peruvian Aprista Party, and Humala, of the Peruvian Nationalist Party, or UPP.
Both Garcia and Humala claim they represent the center-left, but their differences are based on their identification with the current competing political models in Latin America.
At the same time, many of the candidates’ proposals are similar in many respects: both question the neoliberal economic model, promise more social justice and express a willingness to review contracts signed with foreign corporations.
The term “neoliberal” in Latin America describes market-oriented economic policy that has produced a wave of privatizations of formerly state-run sectors over the past 15 years.
Garcia offers an approach to social and economic policy similar to that of Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.
He harshly criticizes Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Bolivian President Evo Morales and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who he contends represent an “exhausted model.”
Garcia launched his campaign for the runoff by engaging in a war of words with Chavez, with the two hurling insults at each other that raised diplomatic tensions between Lima and Caracas, and led to the recall of the countries’ ambassadors.
He called the Venezuelan leader a “scoundrel who asks that no one negotiate with the United States” while oil-rich Venezuela earns “$50 billion a year” selling crude to Washington.
Chavez, who regularly denounces U.S. “imperialism” and withdrew from the Andean Community after Lima and Bogota signed free-trade pacts with Washington, fired back at Garcia, calling him a “swine,” “cardsharp” and “thief.”
The Venezuelan leader also said he would withdraw his ambassador from Peru if Garcia was elected.
Last month, Garcia blamed Chavez for election-related violence in southern Peru.
Garcia said the election would be decided between those who were “with Chavez or with Peru,” and he called on Peruvians to stand behind him and reject Chavez’s “policy of interference.”
The presidential candidate said Chavez sought to control Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, and he lamented the fact that the Venezuelan leader treated Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, “like a child.”
Humala had to distance himself from Chavez in the face of the cross-border sniping and called on the Venezuelan leader publicly to stop meddling in the campaign.
The move went against the position taken by Peruvian nationalists, who have expressed support for the Venezuela-Cuba-Bolivia alliance, with Humala saying those countries were positive examples to follow.
Humala, however, now says he also admires Kirchner, Lula and Bachelet, with whom he would like to work to expand regional integration and make Latin America Latina more equitable and less poor.
The former colonel, who led a failed coup with his brother, Antauro, on Oct. 29, 2000, against then-President Alberto Fujimori, traveled during the campaign for the first-round vote to Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil.
He recently returned to Bolivia to meet with his ally, Morales, who had invited him to his January inauguration.
Humala wanted to use the meeting to bolster relations and ask Morales to not pull Bolivia out of the Andean Commuity, as Chavez did recently with Venezuela.
The meeting between Morales and Humala took place around the inauguration of a Cuban-funded eye clinic in Copacabana, a town that overlooks Bolivia’s portion of Lake Titicaca.
The gathering, which included the Cuban ambassador to Bolivia, raised questions about the plans that Humala, who took a plurality in the first electoral round, has for dealing with foreign investors.
The May 8 event came days after Morales nationalized Bolivia’s energy industry, a move that Humala said was legitimate, even if he did not have similar plans for Peru.
The former officer has been unrelenting during the campaign in criticizing the free trade agreement that the Peruvian government signed in Washington last month, and he called on Garcia to say where he stands on the issue.
Garcia has avoided taking a position on the trade deal, leading Humala to accuse him of being the White House’s candidate.
Humala on Wednesday denied that his supporters would react with violence if he lost the runoff, as polls indicated was likely.
He said in an interview on the America Noticias morning show that his party had “never” talked about violence “after June 4.”
The candidate accused President Alejandro Toledo of having divulged information about a purported “paid disturbance” on election day.
Thousands of police and soldiers have been deployed across the country to maintain order amid concerns about the potential for clashes between supporters of the two candidates.
More than 100 international election observers, most of them from the Organization of American States, are in Peru.
The polls are scheduled to close at 4:00 p.m. (2100 GMT).
