Preview: Fear of Humala drives Peruvian voters to former president

By Jan-Uwe Ronneburger Jun 2, 2006, 8:42 GMT

Buenos Aires/Lima - The worst enemy of Peruvian presidential candidate Alan Garcia is Alan Garcia, but despite his past, he stands a good chance in Sunday's runoff elections.

That's because the alternative, Ollanta Humala, could be even worse, many observers say.

After Garcia's first period as president from 1985 to 1990, nearly all Peruvians swore never again to vote for the candidate of the Apra Party.

At the beginning of his presidency in 1985, Garcia, then 36, was the youngest leader of Latin America. His presidency ended in chaos, with 3,000 per cent inflation, long lines to shop, a rapidly shrinking economy, and serious human rights violations in the fight against the Maoist rebel organization, 'Sendero Luminoso.' The chaos seemed to have killed the political career of the social democrat, once called the Kennedy of Latin America.

'He drove the country into the ground,' quipped one social democrat who lives in the Andean country on the Pacific coast, shaking his head.

When Garcia's successor, Alberto Fujimori, wanted to imprison Garcia, he sought political asylum in Colombia. From there he travelled to France.

Now, 16 years later, the situation has changed. Polls show the 57- year-old can count on 60 per cent of the votes in Sunday's run-off election. And his biggest helper could be his opponent Ollanta Humala, 43, an authoritarian nationalist.

Humala calls himself 'Comandante' and in the election's first round in April, he led Garcia in the number of votes. He stirred up the hate of poverty-stricken Peruvians for the rich upper class. Garcia barely beat out the favoured conservative Lourdes Flores, and cames into the run-off as the underdog.

Now the middle and upper classes are turning to Garcia because they fear Humala.

Humala's associates are holding nothing back in his campaign of fear. Humala's mother advocates shooting homosexuals, and his father would kick all white people out of the country. His brother, Antauro, who is serving time in prison for the death of five people in a military rebellion, wants the departing President Alejandro Toledo, his wife and cabinet to be executed.

Humala, who lacks political experience, has distanced himself from those extreme statements. He says he does not intend to rule with his family. But during a failed military revolt in October 2000, he also advocated the shooting of corrupt officials.

'Some of the people want a dictator, and Humala will give them what they want,' his brother Ulises said. Toledo has warned that a coup could be carried out on election day.

Nearly half of Peru's 28 billion people live in poverty. The differences between rich and poor are extreme.

'You can't eat democracy,' says Javier Ciurlizza, a political scientist at the Catholic University in Lima.

But most Peruvians appear to agree with author Mario Vargas Llosa, who says, Humala would be the end of democracy in Peru, and Garcia is the lesser evil.