Peru

[ag]

Just to clarify.

1. The latest polls have Humala leading (barely) in the first round, but still over 10% behind Flores in the second round. Though, granted, he's been growing fast - but then the other candidates only begin reacting to him. Ollanta seems to come from some local language, probably quechua - at least, there is an inca site called  Ollantaytambo.

2. Vargas Llosa hasn't (yet?) won the Nobel Prize, but he's won pretty much every important prize for Spanish-language writers (well, this might be a slight exaggeration - but only a  slight one). He is, clearly, the preeminent Peruvian writer now (if not ever). Somewhat unusually for a major Latin American writer (though the late Mexican Nobel winner Octavio Paz was another example) he is, indeed, not a leftist, but a liberal democrat (in the non-U.S. sense of the word - i.e., a "rightist" to the leftists).

3. If I get it right, the only party with real following over time is ARPA - of course, a lot of it is personal loyalty to Garcia. Garcia was a very young man (only 35)  when he became Peru's president in 1985 - few people other than his most loyal followers characterize his presidency as anything other than a disaster, but the guy sure is charismatic. I guess, he is driven by an urge for political rehabilitation.

4. It's hard to say, what makes Toledo so unpopular. The economy has been doing great, the insurgency has been kept under control, but the old excesses of Fujimori's regime have been dealt with (for instance, those convicted in military trials of questionable legality are being retried in civillian courts). One can't even say that he is unpopular because of his "pro-American" positions (are they really particularly pro-American? Non-sociallist would be a better description), since he is not even personally popular among pro-American liberals who like what has been happening to the country - they refuse to give him credit for it. I guess, he's been badly tone deaf (hey, he's appointed as his Prime-Minister a guy by the name of Roberto Dañino - what would you think of a Secretary of State Robert Damaging ). A lot of what is going wrong about him has been embodied in his (toll, white, blond, Belgian) wife - apparently she's made a point of being consistently obnoxious in public. At least, she comes up in every conversation with Peruvians. Otherwise, they seem unable to formulate what is really wrong about the guy, except that he is a disaster. I guess, the country likes its leaders strong (Garcia-Fujimori style).

[ag]

I just talked to a Peruvian colleague about Toledo. In his view, people hate the man, but like what he is doing. The guy is just notorious for misjudging the mood and lack of charizma.  My colleague believes that were he to resign in favor of an aide, the substitute would stand a decent chance of being reelected. I don't know whether to believe this, of course.

[ag]

There were a couple of polls out yesterday, but I don't have the results with me. There was a holiday break of campaigning ordered by the Elections' Commission until this week (candidates were even not allowed to attend any public functions or talk to the journalists), so things are barely restarting now. During the break Obrador once again seems to have opened a lead (in the Reforma poll he has 34%), and Calderon fell off somewhat (I think he has 28% - I'd have to check), though still in the second place. Regionally, Calderon still leads in the North and Northwest, and Obrador leads in the center (and now also in the South). The decided registered voters subsample give Obrador a slightly higher lead (40% to 30% for Calderon). Anyway, this comes after a month of no campaigning and is still far too early - the election is not until July. Think of all of this as May polling in the US.

I'll report the detailed poll results tonight or tomorrow.

[ag]

Interesting that PRI remains third. Probably because Lopez Obrador´s style ressembles a lot that of the old PRI, and it´s hitting its base. I would have liked an agreement between Castañeda and Mexico Posible, making things more difficult to Lopez Obrador from the left, but now´s too late. I really wouldn´t know what to vote in this election.

Part that, part the Madrazo reputation and what he's done to PRI leaders (to show how bad things are, Sonora governor Bours just had to state in public that he remains in PRI after meeting with campaign head for Calderon - he followed that statement by immediately saying that he is "open to dialogue" with all parties, and explicitlyu refusing to endorse his own party's candidate for presidency - how about a Republican governor of Ohio refusing to endorse the Republican presidential candidate after the Convention!). Apparently, in the next few weeks we should expect a collective resignation of a few dosen congressmen associated with the teacher's union from the PRI congressional caucus.

By the way, there is no Mexico Posible anymore (sorry for the bad pun) - it didn't get 2% at the last election and was disbanded. You confuse them with Convergencia. Unfortunately, both Convergencia and PT joined up with PRD endorsing Lopez Obrador (though after much discussion).  PVEM ("greens") joined up with PRI and endorsed Madrazo.

There are currently two minor parties not in a coalition - these are new parties, and the first time a party runs it has to get 2% with its own candidate. The first one is Panal (Partido Nuevo Alianza). It has been taken over by the teacher's union head Elba Gordillo (she's been finally kicked out of PRI), who ordered a lieutenant, a Congressman by the name Campa to run on the platform of undermining Madrazo in every way possible. As the papers joked about his candidacy, El ba.

The second one is Alternativa Social Democratica y Campesina. This party is fast becoming a joke. The party was the first one to nominate a candidate - a seemingly nice and moderate woman by the name Patricia Mercado. Unfortunately for her and the party's founders in the search of populist appeal they added "y Campesina" to the party's name and the "corriente campesino" of some purchasable village leaders to the party structure. Well, the purchasable guys got purchased by somebody else: Victor Gonzalez Torres, or Dr. Simi - the owner of "Farmacias Similares", a chain of fake farmacies, selling "similar" drugs, which have never been approved by any regulator. He has offered to inject the party with 10 mln dollars of his own money, if they nominate him instead. He runs on one plank: forcing the Social Security Institute to purchase his drugs for government clinics (the Institute has consistenly offerred him to do the clinical trials and the normal approval process - of course, he doesn't want to). Well, now the "corriente campesino" has submitted an alternative application  to the electoral commission - it's not clear anyone will be registered. It should be added, that "Dr. Simi" is an uncle of the leader of the "Greens" (PVEM). As a result, the main condition of the PVEM alliance with PRI is that the PRI congressional faction has undertaken to push for approving his snake oil substitutes for drugs (to its credit, PAN refused the bargain when approached).

As for the Obrador's problems on the left - his main problem are the Zapatistas, who have started actively campaigning against him nationwide. Now they note, that many of Obrador's campaign aids were high officials in the PRI governments of Salinas and Zedillo, responsible for trying to suppress their innitial uprising.

[ag]

The first round of presidential elections is a hot 3-way race. Humala is almost certainly in the lead (exit polls 30%, actual count 28% so far), Flores and Garcia disputing the second spot w/ 24-26% each.  The 2nd round will be interesting.

But the congressional elections are almost equally interesting. If I get it right, it is PR or semi-PR w/ a 4% barrier. The exit polls show the following (still no official results):

Asociacón Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA, Garcia's party) 20.7%
Unión por Peru (Humala) 17.7%
Unidad Nacional (Flores) 17.1%
Alianza por el Futuro (Fujimori's supporters) 12.9%
Frente del Centro (supporters of ex interim President Paniagua) 8.6%
Perú Posible (supporters of the ougoing President Toledo) 4.2%

Other 16 parties do not seem to be passing the 4% threshold

[ag]

Big question remains: can Flores defeat Humala in the runoff? Well, Humala has polled rather poorly (28%) for a divisive candidate with serious aspirations of getting +50%. Alan Garcia would have certainly beat him easily (all of Flores votes would go to Garcia, or at least not to Humala), but it´s still not clear whether Flores can get Garcia´s votes.

BTW, Vargas Llosa is making big statements against Humala, which are probably nothing but enhancing his chances of victory...

It's going to be a difficult election. Has Garcia conceded? If yes, is he going to endorse anyone?

Vargas Llosa's statements are non-news. What is he supposed to do, endorse Humala? And keeping silent is not an option he'd consider.

[ag]

W/  77.75% counted, Garcia is actually 2nd, which, probably, means President Garcia.

Ollanta Humala 29.94 %
Alan García 24.95 %
Lourdes Flores 24.37%

There is a log in English in British Columbia of all places : http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/peru/

[ag]

Actually, the ranking is:

Humala - awful, disastrous, run-away-from-the-country-if-you-still-can "news".
Garcia - very bad news, that would be considered disastrous unless compared w/ Humala.
Flores - marginally bad "news", that would be considered quite bad, unless compared to the other two.

Outgoing pres. Toledo - the best "news" the country has had in a long time or is likely to have in the forseeble future, but they all hate him.

[ag]

A necessary observation should be made here. Garcia is a left-winger (and one of the worst former presidents in Peruvian history) . Humala is a LatAm populist or National Sociallist. He is a former officer, who participated in coup attempts and whose nationalism is a lot clearer than his sociallism. In  Europe those of Chavez-Humala type are considered ultra-right, not left. His closest ideological parallel in Europe would be something like Le Pen.

[ag]

Some polling for the Peruvian round 2.

Apoyo Opinion has published its polling for May 3-5. Apparently, they were closest to predicting the first round, though they did understate Humala's vote. In any case, here it is:

Nationwide 2000 voter sample in 175 districts of 113 localities in 77 provinces (I gather, Peru has smallish provinces ). MOE 2.2%

If today there was the second round, whom would you vote for?

Alan Garcia 44%
Ollanta Humala 34%
Blank/spoiled ballot 14%
Did not indicate 8%

Of those who chose the candidate
Alan Garcia 57%
Ollanta Humala 43%

In Lima

Alan Garcia 42%
Ollanta Humala 37%
Blank/spoiled ballot 13%
Did not indicate 8%

In Rest of the Country

Do you have a positive or negative opinion of Hugo Chavez?

Negative 61%
Positive 17%
Did not specify 8%
Don't know him 14%

Do you have a positive or negative opinion of Evo Morales?

Negative 41%
Positive 23%
Did not specify 10%
Don't know him 26%

Should there be a debate before round 2?

Yes 91%
No 7%
Did not specify 2%

[ag]

Humala Gains on Garcia in Peru Presidential Poll, Apoyo Says

May 29 (Bloomberg) -- Peruvian Nationalist candidate Ollanta Humala gained on frontrunner Alan Garcia in an opinion poll ahead of the country's June 4 presidential run-off vote.

Backing for Garcia slipped to 55 percent from 56 percent a week ago, while Humala rose to 45 percent from 43 percent, Lima- based polling firm Apoyo Opinion y Mercado said in an e-mail statement. The May 23-26 nationwide poll of 2,000 registered voters, which is based on valid votes, has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.

I love the headliners. Correct headline: no statistically signifficant movement in poll.

[ag]

From the wiki articles, Humala seems the best candidate.

Only if you really, passionately, to a colic, hate Peru. Both are awful, but Humala is especially so.

[ag]

From the wiki articles, Humala seems the best candidate.

Only if you really, passionately, to a colic, hate Peru. Both are awful, but Humala is especially so.

He seems preferably to an extremist leftist of the likes of Morales.
Of course, I understand how you might see it differently.

Humala is indistinguishable from Chavez, probably more radical than Morales. I think you are confusing the candidates. The relative "moderate" is Garcia.

[ag]

From the wiki articles, Humala seems the best candidate.

Only if you really, passionately, to a colic, hate Peru. Both are awful, but Humala is especially so.

He seems preferably to an extremist leftist of the likes of Morales.
Of course, I understand how you might see it differently.

Humala is indistinguishable from Chavez, probably more radical than Morales. I think you are confusing the candidates. The relative "moderate" is Garcia.

Well, Wiki says Humala is from a liberal centrist party, while Garcia is from an extreme left party.

If Humala is from a "liberal, centrist" party, then so is Fidel Castro.

[ag]

Yes, they do have compulsory voting in Peru. The candidate percentages they report, though, are of the number of valid ballots. In addition to the 11% that didn't show up, another 8.6% have cast blank ballots.

[ag]

Are there any regional results of the last Presidential election available online? Just wondering if Humala took most of Toledo's old voters or not...

I will have  to search for 2001 results, but from what I here most of Toledo vote was going to Garcia, not to Humala - the lesser evil thing.

[ag]

Here is the comparison of 2001 and 2006 results by Garcia in the 2nd round (in 2001, of course, his opponent was Toledo). Note that all percentages are from the number of valid votes (because of compulsory voting, there are a lot of blanc ballots that don't count - in this election, so far, these are 8.6% of the total). The first number (before Garcia's name) is the 2006 result, the second (after the name) is the 2001 result. Note, that while in many places in the interior the Toledo vote seems to have gone to Humala, Lima is another matter: it may be the first time Garcia actually won Lima, and he did win it decisively this time.  Overall, "in the bush", where Garcia has always been weak, there is a swing further away from him, but there is a massive swing towards him around Lima, and even in the cities like Arequipa and Cusco where he's done bad last time he did improve, if slightly.

La Libertad 73.7% Garcia 71.8%
Callao 67.9% Garcia 53.8%
Peruvians abroad 65.0% Garcia ?
Lima 62.2% Garcia 47.8%
Lambayeque 61.4% Garcia 55.0%
Ica 59.8% Garcia 57.3%
Pasco 59.0% Garcia 44.5%
Piura 58.6% Garcia 56.3%
Ancash 55.0% Garcia 40.7%
Tumbes 53.4% Garcia 54.2%
Ucayali 52.0% Garcia 47.3%
Moquequa 50.2% Garcia 46.3%
Cajamarca 47.9% Garcia 50.7%
Loreto 45.3% Garcia 30.2%
Amazonas 43.9% Garcia 48.3%
San Martin 43.4% Garcia 51.0%
Madre de Dios 42.7% Garcia 46.0%
Huanuco 39.7% Garcia 39.0%
Tacna 39.1% Garcia 49.9%
Junin 38.5% Garcia 40.6%
Arequipa 36.2% Garcia 33.1%
Puno 32.2% Garcia 34.8%
Cusco 30.1% Garcia 29.2%
Apurimac 28.9% Garcia 37.8%
Huancavelica 27.1% Garcia 30.5%
Ayacucho 19.1% Garcia 32.2%

[ag]

I assume that Garcia is a native of La Libertad province?

I don't think so. Most likely has to do with the traditional strength of APRA there. Probably, worth checking.

[ag]

Following up. (Dis)believing Wikipedia (at least, its Spanish version), the APRA party's founder Raúl Haya de la Torre (1895 - 1979) was born in Trujillo.  That should explain things.

[ag]

With 93.061% (sic) of precincts computed, the results so far give Garcia 53.136% (6,602,188 votes) and Humala 46.864% (5,822,879 votes). Actually, if all votes are counted (and not only the valid ones - a lot of people voted with blank and spoiled ballots) the results so far are:

Garcia 48.770%
Humala 43.013%
Blank ballots 1.036%
Spoiled ballots 7.166%
Contested ballots (to be resolved) 0.016%

[ag]

Humala was in fact running under a centrist label. The thing is that he couldn´t even get enough signatures to create his own party (that was before his sudden and massive growth in the polls, of course), so former UN secretary Javier Pérez de Cuellar let him use the party label with which he had ran in a previous election. It´s true they probably have nothing in common, so I don´t know what did Humala offer Pérez de Cuellar to get the label.

Once the party is sold, does it matter what else had been done under the same label in the past? Did't he get it lock, stock, and barrel? Peru has only one party - APRA. The rest are just labels, without a meaning.