Leftist ex-officer vs Fujimori in Peru runoff
LIMA, Peru (AP) — An anti-establishment military man who promises to redistribute Peru's wealth won the most votes in Sunday's presidential election and will face the daughter of imprisoned former President Alberto Fujimori in a runoff, unofficial results showed.
Keiko Fujimori, 35, could end up beating Ollanta Humala in the June 5 runoff as he was the only candidate who advocated altering Peru's free market-oriented status quo by giving the state a greater role in the economy.
The ex-army lieutenant colonel also won the first round in Peru's 2006 presidential vote but was defeated 53 percent to 47 percent by Alan Garcia in a runoff widely seen as a rebuff to Hugo Chavez, who had openly backed him.
This time, Humala distanced himself from the leftist Venezuelan president, while Fujimori backed away from vows to pardon her father she made two years ago when he was convicted of approving death squad killings and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Nobel literature laureate Mario Vargas Llosa had called a runoff between the extremes that are Humala and Keiko Fujimori "a choice between AIDS and terminal cancer" given perceptions of their anti-democratic tendencies.
Unofficial results representing 100 percent of the vote released by the nonprofit electoral watchdog Transparencia gave Humala 31.7 percent in Sunday's election — well short of the simple majority needed to win outright.
Keiko Fujimori — whose father Peruvians alternately adore and vilify — got 23.3 percent trailed by Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a 72-year-old former World Bank economist and investment banker, with 18.3 percent.
In fourth was Alejandro Toledo, Peru's president from 2001-2006, with 15.9 percent. Former Lima Mayor Luis Castaneda was fifth with 9.9 percent.
By 10:30 p.m. (0230 GMT Monday), Peru's electoral commission had released 43 percent of official results — showing Kuczynski in second — but cautioned that they were skewed in favor of urban centers.
Pre-election polls indicated both Toledo and Kuczynski would defeat Humala in a second round while Kuczynski and Fujimori would have a harder time.
Humala has spooked foreign investors by promising to divert natural gas exports to the domestic market and obtain greater royalties from foreign investors in Peru's mineral wealth.
"Today we're celebrating because of the Peruvian people's expressing that they want a great transformation," he said Sunday in a victory speech.
That's just fine with Federico Sandoval, a 60-year-old veterinarian in Lima's sprawling lower class Villa El Salvador district.
Sandoval said he voted for Humala because the corruption that has long been a hallmark of Peruvian politics — and that many believe worsened under President Garcia — needs to stop.
In order to improve the situation there need to be changes and they should be radical," Sandoval said.
Politics in this resource-rich Andean nation have been volatile since the 1980s, when its discredited political parties all but dissolved.
George Mason University political scientist Jo-Marie Burt said Sunday's outcome puts Peru on "a really terrible road and I think it shows how weak the whole political system really is."
Keiko Fujimori constantly invoked her father during the campaign, running on his legacy of delivering essential services to Peru's forgotten backwater and of being tough on crime. It's a potent message in a nation 30 million where one in three live on less than $3 a day and lack running water.
During her victory speech from the terrace of a downtown hotel, jubilant supporters changed "Chino. Chino. Chino," her father's popular nickname. She thanked him and sought to dispel concerns of a return to authoritarian rule.
"We are going to work my dear friends with absolute respect for democracy, press freedom, human rights and the rule of law," she said.
Peru is a top exporter of copper, gold and silver, commodities whose rising prices have helped fuel economic growth averaging 7 percent during Garcia's tenure. But it is a growth that has hardly trickled down to the poor.
Political analyst Leon Trahtemberg said Sunday's outcome reflected the failure of President Garcia's "triumphalism" in obtaining major foreign investment while "forgetting to attend to the poor."
Eliminated candidate Toledo said voters simply "expressed their rage at having economic growth without the distribution of the benefits of that growth."
Peru ranks 13th out of 17 countries in the region in terms of citizen access to social services, according to a new World Bank report. In the country's rural highlands, where both Humala and Fujimori ran strongly, 66 percent of Peruvians live in poverty, half in extreme poverty.
Kuczynski, a German immigrant's son who was economics and prime minister under Toledo, climbed into contention in the campaign's final weeks. But the perception of him as the candidate of big foreign capital hurt him.
Toledo had led in the polls until late March, when Humala overtook him. His voters also defected to Kuczynski.
Humala, 48, made promises similar to those of Keiko Fujimori: free nursery school and public education, state-funded school breakfasts and lunches, a big boost in the minimum wage, and pensions for all beginning at age 65.
He says he would respect international treaties and contracts, but many Peruvians don't believe him.
Humala, who launched a bloodless, short-lived revolt against Alberto Fujimori just before the latter fled into exile in 2000, advocates rewriting the constitution, as Chavez and his leftist allies in Bolivia and Ecuador have done. He says it will make it easier to enact reforms — vowing not to seek re-election, as Chavez and the Bolivian and Ecuadorean leaders have.
Fujimori has a rock-solid, unwavering constituency thanks to her father's defeat of the Maoist-inspired Shining Path insurgency, taming of hyperinflation in the 1990s and social agenda.
"Because of him we are free. Because of him we're at peace," said Luz Montesino, a 60-year-old bakery owner who voted at a school built during his presidency.
Like other Fujimori voters, Montesino was not bothered by the dark, authoritarian side of the Fujimori legacy — including Alberto's shutting down of Congress in 1992. Nor do Keiko Fujimori backers seem concerned by critics' fears Keiko would pardon her father, and he'll call the shots in her presidency.
Toledo voter Humberto Mejia expects the worst if Keiko Fujimori is elected.
"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree," said Mejia, a lawyer. "All the corrupt and drug traffickers will be freed (from prison). All those guys are getting out."
(기사내용)
페루 대선 좌파와 게이코 후지모리와 결선 갈듯
리마, 페루 (AP) - 비공식집계에 의하면 10일 실시된 페루 대통령 선거 예선투표에서 좌파진영의 오얀타 우말라가 최다 득표를 하여 옥중의 알베르토 후지모리 전 대통령의 딸과 결선투표를 치를 것으로 보인다.
오얀타 우말라가 경제에서 국가의 역할을 강조하여 현 페루의 자유경제체제를 국가경제체제로 바꾸려는 계획을 공약으로 내세우면서 케이코 후지모리가 6월 5일에 있을 결선투표에서 승리할 수 있어 보인다.
예선투표에서 승리한 전 육군 중령 출신인 오얀타 우말라는 2006년 선거에서도 알란 가르시아에게 47% 대 53%로 패배한 바 있는데 그 당시 공개적으로 우말라를 지지한 우고 차베스에 대한 단호한 거부의사로 비쳐 졌었다.
이번 선거에서는 우말라는 베네수엘라 좌파 우고 차베스대통령과 거리를 두었고 케이코는 후지모리 전 대통령의 사면에 대해서 언급을 자제했다. 후지모리 전 대통령은 2년 전 살인과 납치를 명령하는 등 인권을 침해한 죄로 징역 25년형을 선고받은 후지모리 전 대통령을 사면하겠다는 공약을 철회했다.
마리오 바르가스 요사 노벨문학상 수상자는 두 결선후보자의 극단적으로 대조되는 성향에 대해서 우말라와 케이코 후지모리를 에이즈 와 말기 암으로 비유하며 두 호보자의 비 민주주의적 정책을 비꼬았다.
우말라는 천연가스를 해외에 수출하지 않고 국내시장으로 전용하고 해외투자자들에게 페루의 광물자원에 대해 더 많은 로열티를 부과할 것이다 고 공약함으로써 그들을 겁먹게 했다.
우말라는 예비투표 승리를 축하하는 연설에서 “페루사람들이 더 많은 변화를 원한다는 것이 표로 나타났다” 고 말했다.
자원이 풍부한 페루는 1980년 이후 몇개의 정당이 해산당하면서 정치 상황이 불안정한 상태로 이어지고 있다.
케이코 후지모리는 선거기간동안 페루의 잊힌 벽지에 필수 불가결한 서비스를 제공하고 범죄에 강경하게 대처했던 자신의 부친인 후지모리 전 대통령을 계속 언급했다. 이 공약으로 3천만 명의 인구가운데 3분의 1이 하루 3달러 미만으로 생활하고 수돗물이 공급되지 않는 사람들에게 강한 메시지를 전달했다.
페루는 구리, 금, 은의 세계최대 수출국이며 광물자원의 가격인상으로 가리시아 대통령 재임동안 년 평균 7%의 경제성장을 이끌어 왔지만 빈민에게는 혜택이 돌아가지 못했다.
페루는 세계은행의 보고서에 의하면 사회보장서비스에서 남미 17개국 가운데 13위에 있다. 페루의 중부고원지대에서 우말라와 케이코가 두명 모두 강한 지지를 받고 있는데 66%의 페루인이 빈곤층이며 그 반수가 최빈곤층의 생활을 하고 있다.
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