Sunday, April 10, 2011

Peruvians elected president in one of the most disputed elections in its history

Million Peruvians without incident go to the polls to elect a president, congressmen and members of the Andean Parliament. The eyes are on four candidates, but polls show the differences in the intention to vote are so narrow that it is more likely that there will be runoff between the top two on 5 June.

The polls close at four pm (seven hours in mainland Spain). According to the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE), early election results will be announced at eight o'clock in the night (three in the morning Spanish). The voters are divided between those who want the continuity of a model that has triggered the economy since the nineties and, better oiled, will benefit a larger number of people, and those who are tired of waiting and believe the country needs a return radical nut because otherwise remain poorly distributed wealth.

The elections taking place today are key to democracy railroaded yet lacking strong institutions and a successful economy but petty nationalist candidate Ollanta Humala, first in the polls to pass in the first round, concentrates that disgust and protest vote, while former President Alejandro Toledo and it was his economy minister, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (known as PPK), represent the voters who fear that Humala make the country back two decades.

In the middle appears Keiko Fujimori, daughter of Alberto Fujimori exmandatario, imprisoned for crimes against humanity. "Only if we win Keiko to a disaster," says the renowned analyst Julio Cotler, "because it would mean an embarrassment to Peru." Peruvian elections are also key to South America, because again it appears the rivalry between the radical leftist model led by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales, and the block that goes from the free market in Chile and Colombia to social democracy in Brazil and Uruguay.

The proposal Chavez in Venezuela is in crisis, recession and drench these days in Bolivia protests by social sectors once sympathetic to the government, "Humala has turned over his ultranationalist discourse of the 2006 campaign and is postulated as the Peruvian Lula . To reinforce this image, the Brazilian president sent advisers and recommended the inclusion of moderate leftist political movement lists Earn Peru, formerly called the Partido Nacionalista Peruano.

Smoothing Humala's speech, no candidate is proposing a radical change of economic model, mainly supported by mineral exports and an open policy to foreign investment. The international market has followed the process closely because even though Peru is not the continent's largest economies, it is the second largest exporter of copper, silver first and fifth gold of the world.

Copper is not as crucial as oil for the world economy, but it is not insignificant given their infinite applications, especially in technology. For weeks there has been speculation Humala victory would lead to the nationalization of the mining sector and this, combined with the riots in the Middle East, will add volatility to the market of raw materials and hence the global economy.

Fujimori's daughter scare voters in the conservative middle class and almost as much as Humala, but for different reasons. It does not suspect that will change the economic system put in place and not his father is alleged to boost social programs similar to flying Humala, such as school meals and decent pensions, which would ease social tensions in Peru.

But worries that recreates the authoritarianism and contempt for the institutions of his brutal father and corruption that marked the mandate of the Chinese. Nobody doubts that we must build a state, while maintaining the basic health and education, security, justice is done and encourage entrepreneurship, but few see the person Keiko able to build this state.

20% supporting it, according to surveys, you simply increase social spending. Toledo and PPK, the two men backed by entrepreneurs and emerging social classes, have been charged with disturbing one another to get behind Humala and Fujimori in the polls. PPK, however, has rebounded in recent days in the polls and yesterday won the support of Garcia's APRA party history, which, although discredited by corruption, maintains a support base that can be useful to PPK.

The former minister of finance, according to recent polls, has attracted the votes of the former mayor of Lima Luis CastaƱeda and undecided middle class, which are a significant percentage. Many of the latter calculated the vote on the question of which candidate will have a better chance of defeating Humala in the final round of the June 5, when Peru 101st choose the ruler since independence.

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