If I were to tell you that the winner in a presidential election over the weekend has the first name “Alan”, your initial thought probably wouldn’t be that Latin America has a new leader. But ‘Alan’ Garcia did indeed receive 54.69% of the votes in Peru’s presidential election, defeating his nationalist opponent Ollanta Humala.
It seems Al and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez are not that close. Chavez had made known his support for Humala throughout the campaign, and following his victory, Al thundered:
“Today, the majority of the country has delivered a message in favour of national independence, of national sovereignty……They have defeated the efforts by Mr Hugo Chavez to integrate us into his militaristic and backwards expansion project he intends to impose over South America. Today, Peru has said no.”
I guess it’s a case of watch this space.
We now look forward to upcoming elections in Uruguay. My money is on that Trevor fella.
Gene adds: It will be interesting to hear from the chavistas about why Garcia– not a terribly popular figure in Peru– defeated the candidate supported by Chavez. Could it be that a majority of Peruvians (not all of them members of the wealthy elite) simply didn’t care for Chavez and his efforts to interfere in their election?
