Serene Assir reviews coverage of the Peruvian presidential race in the country's press All eyes were on Peru as the country went to the polls to elect a new president to replace outgoing Alejandro Toledo as he approaches the end of his term in office, which he is not permitted to consecutively renew by Peruvian law. Within hours of the election, initial official results indicated that the left-wing former military officer Ollanta Humala had garnered the most votes at 27.8 per cent. Rivals conservative Lourdes Flores took 26.3 per cent, while former centre-left president Alan Garcia took 25.6 percent. Other independent polls showed that it was likely that Humala had taken marginally more. But given that no candidate garnered an absolute majority, however, Peru will stage run-offs, most likely between Humala and Flores in June, according to Peruvian online daily Aja Digital. The key significance of the election -- as has been in the case in other recent presidential races across Latin America -- is the fact that Humala has expressed both his admiration for Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, whose policies have frequently angered Washington and local economic elites, and his plans to radicalise the Peruvian economy in the interests of the poor. He has also announced plans to industrialise the production of cocaine and to rewrite the Peruvian constitution against the interests of what he termed "a fascist dictatorship of the economically powerful". His military past has also pitted him against some sectors of the population, who blame him for participating in deadly counter-insurgency mass operations in the east in the early 1990s. They also fear the resurgence of radical security measures under the guise of socialism. But among his most fervent supporters are the majority impoverished Quechua Indians, who remain marginalised from the mainstream by force of their origins, age-old discrimination against them by the urban whites and their inhabitation of the country's mountains. The Peruvian press reported various incidents that occurred through the voting. For one, Peru 21 reported news of the explosion of two small artefacts near the voting office were Humala and his wife were set to vote. Meanwhile, citing the National Office of Voting Processes (ONPE) reported a similar incident in a small town in Huanuco province, which reportedly hosts supporters of insurgency group Shining Path, and according to sources cited by Peru 21, there were some injuries sustained there. Meanwhile, Aja Digital carried a report on "profound confusion" among voters on Sunday, many of whom reportedly did not know where to vote and alleged misinformation from the ONPE. All in all, however, the press sought to minimise the significance of such reports, focussing instead on the significance of the preliminary results. Also in Peru 21, Editor- in-Chief Augusto Alvarez Rodrich referred to the pre- election campaign as a "dirty war" which has reaped little but uncertain results. The writer notes that "the country that has emerged from these presidential elections can be described as little other than a fragmented one." He also goes on to describe what the balance of interests could mean for the post-electoral future, whereby even if Humala wins the second round, he will not have reaped the moral majority -- as has been rendered clear by the now completed first round -- to make the "various reforms he has proposed, such as the constitutional one." Commenting on similarly divided legislative elections, set at the same time as the presidentials, Humala was cited in Latin American portal IAR Noticias as saying: "We are witnessing social fracturing in our country, and we do not want to deepen it. I want peace, I want tranquility." Meanwhile Cronica Viva ran a piece commenting on the political symbolism of the election. Citing Peruvian Socialist Party candidate Javier Diez Canseco, the writer notes: "The results at the polls are an objective expression of Peruvian society's shift to the left and the centre-left, to demand a profound change in the country's political management of economic and social issues." On the other side of the political spectrum, business portal Acceso Peru ran a story signalling insecurity among the ranks of the business and investor community -- a phenomenon which begs comparison with the financial elites in Venezuela and then Bolivia. The article cites sources indicating that, until the second round determines the country's political future, investors "will remain cautious".
