PROFILE: Humala, a converted radical or just a good strategist?

By Gonzalo Ruiz Tovar Jun 7, 2011, 9:38 GMT

Lima - Left-wing nationalist Ollanta Humala, 48, was elected Sunday to be Peru's next president, but he remains an unknown.

A former radical, he abandoned Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as a role model and swapped him for the more politically correct former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

But many do not believe the conversion and think it was only a campaign strategy. Critics fear that, once in power, he will take off his mask and become a Peruvian version of the outspoken Chavez.

Ollanta Moises Humala was born in Lima on June 27, 1962, into a large, politically active family. His name is a reference to an Inca general, and it feeds the legend that his father always dreamt that he would be president.

This retired army lieutenant-colonel has some political experience. In 2006, he won the first round of the presidential election and lost the runoff in a close race to outgoing President Alan Garcia.

This time around, he again won the first round of voting in April but had learnt his lesson: he also carried the runoff, with a much more conciliatory discourse than he used four years ago.

Humala caught the public eye in late 2000, when he led a rebellion against the government of president-turned-dictator Alberto Fujimori, the father of Humala's runoff rival Keiko Fujimori.

The rebellion was militarily almost ridiculous: Humala's comrades-in-arms deserted him, and he himself wandered around the Andes when the authorities were in fact not even looking for him.

Nobody noticed at the time, but that was the birth of a leader. He pursued further his military career, while his family promoted a controversial ideology that mixed socialism, ultranationalism, fascism, racism, chauvinism and other such concepts.

Humala's father, Isaac, a lawyer, made a name for himself thanks to ideas that most people believed to be crazy. When Ollanta entered politics with a more down-to-earth discourse, he had trouble taking his distance from the picturesque but potentially dangerous ideas of his father.

Humala's former admiration for Chavez remains a weak spot for Peru's president-elect, and critics fear that he may tamper with the economic model that has led the country to impressive growth, or even with the country's democratic form of government.

However, Humala's discourse has changed, and he sounds almost like a social democrat these days.

The man who once promised radical reforms now offers 'change without destabilization,' and he got to count right-wing liberal author Mario Vargas Llosa and former Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo among his supporters ahead of the runoff.

Angry-looking, not fond of jokes, athletic - Humala is a classic soldier who has little trouble identifying with the population. The military style appeals to some and annoys others, and indeed Humala is the kind of politician who unleashes passion one way or another, but never indifference.

His hard man's image is in contrast with his wife, Nadine Heredia, a woman with a sweet smile and well-structured leftist ideals who is not scared of the media. The couple have three young children.

Humala might have had a tough time making it to the presidency in a different scenario. However, Fujimori evokes at least as many doubts as the retired soldier, and Humala carried the clash of extremes.