monday, june 05, 2006
Peruvian Presidential Election
In a turn of events few would have confidently predicted six months ago, former Peruvian President Alan Garcia won Sunday's runoff election and will become Peru's next president on July 28.At approximately 10 p.m. Sunday night, dark horse candidate Ollanta Humala conceded the election. Although only just more than 77 percent of the votes had been tallied by that point, it was clear that Garcia's lead was insurmountable. As of 11:32 p.m. just less than 84 percent of the more than 16 million votes had been tallied. Garcia held 54.7 percent versus Humala's 45.3 percent.
But the margin of victory is expected to narrow as the remaining votes - mostly from rural areas that strongly back Humala's nationalist platform - are counted. And Humala's brief concession speech alluded to the fact he intends to continue his nationalist platform. read more
saturday, may 06, 2006
Peruvian Presidential Election
In exactly three weeks, Peruvian will head to polls and select their next president. It has already been a chaotic election and things could get even crazier in these final days.Ollanta Humala, the nationalist candidate who has captured international attention due to his ties with controversial Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, took an easy victory in the April 9 election. He captured just more than 30 percent of the total ballots, enough to win the first round but much less than anticipated. Pre-election polls put him taking more than 40 percent of the vote.
The real difficulty has been figuring out who his opponent would be in the runoff. The separation between former president Alan Garcia and establishment-candidate Lourdes Flores was razor thin. It was not until late last week a victor was announced. Garcia won with 24.32 percent of the vote, just nudging Flores’ 23.81. Only 62,578 separated the two in the final count. read more
tuesday, april 11, 2006
Peruvian Presidential Election
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Two days after Peruvians took to the polls to decide who will lead their nation, the race remains too close to count. Nationalist candidate Ollanta Humala has clearly made it to the second round but there is a great uncertainty on who his opponent will be.
Former president Alan Garcia has overtaken Lourdes Flores in the general count and now leads by a full percentage point. His lead is expected go grow as the ballots that remain to be counted originate from the more remote rural areas not likely to vote for Flores who they see as part of the establishment. But things could change when the votes of more than 180,000 Peruvians living abroad - the majority of whom are expected to support Flores - are tallied as well. read more
friday, april 07, 2006
Peruvian Presidential Election
Peru's contentious presidential race is reaching its bitter end as each candidate has held their final rallies here in Lima and have begun the long wait until Sunday night.Little has changed since the last polls, as nationalist and foreign investment bogyman Ollanta Humala is the favorite (the photo is a shot of his final rally held in the center of the city on Thursday night from El Comercio) with establishment candidate Lourdes Flores slightly behind. Former-president Alan Garcia still threatens to take a chunk of votes from both and there are 17 other candidates ready to chew on the scraps.
Entering the weekend a full quarter of voters polled still have not made a decision on their candidate of choice making the final results uncertain but not the likely outcome - a runoff between Humala and Flores sometime in the next two months. My story in today's Newsday, Populist candidate leads in Peru race, looks at the upcoming race with a focus on Humala's controversial candidacy. read more
tuesday, march 14, 2006
Peruvian Election Primer
If all goes as planned, Peruvians will take to the polls on April 9 to elect a new president and congress. The political situation here is always a bit strange, somewhat chaotic and always confusing and these traits are full force during this frantic campaign season.The upcoming election is a bit of a conundrum for many reasons. There are two ex-presidents in the running, Valentín Paniagua and Alan Garcia, neither of whom is a front-runner. A third ex-president, Alberto Fujimori, is incarcerated in neighboring Chile awaiting extradition and has a placeholder candidate running for him. A nationalist candidate in the mold of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez has emerged, Ollanta Humala, but he is such an unknown quantity no one is quite sure what to think of his platform. read more