Peru's Toledo Calls for Calm as Protesters Attack Candidate
Peru's President Alejandro Toledo urged Peruvians to remain calm and sent riot police to escort Nationalist Party candidate Ollanta Humala after several hundred protesters attacked him at a polling station during presidential elections today.
A hundred police used riot shields to protect Humala and former Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy, head of an Organization of American States delegation, after protesters chanting ``murderer'' threw stones and bottles at Humala, the front-runner in the presidential race.
Former army colonel Humala, 43, a proponent of greater state control over mineral resources, led in two polls published yesterday. Humala will face either Lourdes Flores, 46, a lawyer who favors more foreign investment and trade, or former President Alan Garcia, 56, in a May runoff, the polls showed.
With 20 percent of voters undecided, investors such as Jaime Valdivia at Emerging Sovereign Group worry Humala may win and squander Peru's success in luring investment and spurring growth. Humala would put Peru in the camp of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales, who also favor curbing company profits to help the poor benefit from the region's oil and mineral wealth.
Chavez Acolyte
``The possibility we'll have another Chavez acolyte in Peru represents a serious challenge to the economic model and a threat to democracy,'' said Michael Shifter, vice president for policy at Washington research organization Inter-American Dialogue.
Voting began at 8 a.m. in Lima (9 a.m. in New York) and exit polls are set to be released at about 4 p.m. About 135,000 members of the armed forces are voting for the first time. Nearly half a million Peruvians overseas also are casting ballots.
Media outlets including Lima-based station America Television accused Humala of torturing and murdering Peruvians while fighting Peru's Maoist Shining Path insurgency in the northern jungle during the 1990s, a charge he has denied.
``Make use of the weapon of the ballot box, but don't attack the electoral process itself,'' Toledo told Lima station Panamericana Television. ``The world is watching us -- this is democracy, not the authoritarian past.''
Economic Growth
Humala has capitalized on the frustration of Peru's 13 million poorest citizens who have seen little benefit from the nation's economic growth, said Alfredo Torres, of Lima-based polling firm Apoyo Opinion y Mercado.
Peru's $68 billion economy has expanded at an annual rate of 5 percent since President Alejandro Toledo, 60, took office in 2001. His government trimmed Peru's deficit to 0.4 percent of gross domestic product from 2.5 percent in 2001. The inflation rate is the lowest in the region at 2.5 percent in March.
Annual exports are forecast to triple to $21 billion this year. Peru is the world's fourth-largest producer of copper, the fifth in gold, the third of zinc and the largest of fish meal. The country has Latin America's fifth-largest reserves of natural gas.
Peru's benchmark stock index is the world's fourth-best performer this year with a 32 percent gain in dollar terms, according to Bloomberg. The nation's dollar-denominated bonds yield on average 2.1 percentage points more than U.S. Treasuries of similar maturity, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Valdivia said he is concerned about Humala's pledges to boost corporate taxes and increase health and education spending.
``Investors are worried Humala will raise taxes on mining companies, take them over or do something else equally radical,'' Valdivia, who manages $230 million of emerging market assets at Emerging Sovereign Group, said in a telephone interview from New York. ``He's not been articulate on what he plans to do.''
Polls
An Apoyo poll published yesterday showed Humala with 27 percent support compared with 23 percent for both for both Flores and Garcia. Another survey, by Lima-based Datum gave Humala 26 percent and Lourdes and Garcia tied with 24 percent.
The Apoyo poll, which surveyed 3,892 people, had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. The Datum poll, which also said 23 percent of the electorate is undecided, polled 2,536 people and had a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
Toledo, who repeatedly has criticized Humala's campaign pledges, yesterday called on voters to oppose ``authoritarianism'' in the election and vote for a presidential candidate who will build and not destroy the nation.
``It's been a major effort to build our democracy,'' Toledo said in a nationwide broadcast on state television station TNP last night. ``Don't let authoritarianism through the front or back door.''
Peru's 16 million voters are also casting ballots today for two vice-presidents, a 120-member Congress and seven candidates to the Andean Parliament. Twenty candidates are running for president and 3,000 for Congress..
Investor Concerns
Humala's emergence as a favorite among voters caused Peru's stock market index to drop 2.5 percent the week of March 20. The central bank last week raised the benchmark lending rate to a three-year high of 5 percent to guard against a possible decline after this weekend's election. The sol rallied 0.6 percent on April 7 to 3.3585 per dollar after the central bank's rate increase.
Garcia's support among voters has increased in the past several polls. The former president served between 1985 and 1990 and ended his term amid hyperinflation -- consumer prices doubled daily toward the end of his presidency -- and an escalating guerrilla war that left at least 15,000 dead during that time. He returned to Peru in 2001 after nine years in self-exile in Paris.
Garcia lost a re-election bid against Toledo in a run-off in 2001 after edging out Flores in the first round.
`Market-Friendly'
``Garcia won't be as market-friendly as Flores, but he'll be less unfriendly than Humala,'' said Franco Uccelli, an analyst at Bear Stearns Cos. in Boca Raton, Florida.
Flores, who is seeking to become the Andean nation's first woman president after losing a bid for the presidency in 2001, has campaigned on pledges to grant greater access to credit and training for farmers and small businesses, while promising to respect contracts signed between the government and investors.
Flores vowed to counter the influence of Chavez, who began an initiative for a regional trade bloc to replace U.S. President George W. Bush's Free Trade Agreement for the Americas.
Toledo pulled Peru's ambassador from Venezuela in January after Chavez, 51, called Flores ``the candidate of the oligarchy'' and publicly backed Humala's candidacy.
A hundred police used riot shields to protect Humala and former Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy, head of an Organization of American States delegation, after protesters chanting ``murderer'' threw stones and bottles at Humala, the front-runner in the presidential race.
Former army colonel Humala, 43, a proponent of greater state control over mineral resources, led in two polls published yesterday. Humala will face either Lourdes Flores, 46, a lawyer who favors more foreign investment and trade, or former President Alan Garcia, 56, in a May runoff, the polls showed.
With 20 percent of voters undecided, investors such as Jaime Valdivia at Emerging Sovereign Group worry Humala may win and squander Peru's success in luring investment and spurring growth. Humala would put Peru in the camp of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Bolivia's Evo Morales, who also favor curbing company profits to help the poor benefit from the region's oil and mineral wealth.
Chavez Acolyte
``The possibility we'll have another Chavez acolyte in Peru represents a serious challenge to the economic model and a threat to democracy,'' said Michael Shifter, vice president for policy at Washington research organization Inter-American Dialogue.
Voting began at 8 a.m. in Lima (9 a.m. in New York) and exit polls are set to be released at about 4 p.m. About 135,000 members of the armed forces are voting for the first time. Nearly half a million Peruvians overseas also are casting ballots.
Media outlets including Lima-based station America Television accused Humala of torturing and murdering Peruvians while fighting Peru's Maoist Shining Path insurgency in the northern jungle during the 1990s, a charge he has denied.
``Make use of the weapon of the ballot box, but don't attack the electoral process itself,'' Toledo told Lima station Panamericana Television. ``The world is watching us -- this is democracy, not the authoritarian past.''
Economic Growth
Humala has capitalized on the frustration of Peru's 13 million poorest citizens who have seen little benefit from the nation's economic growth, said Alfredo Torres, of Lima-based polling firm Apoyo Opinion y Mercado.
Peru's $68 billion economy has expanded at an annual rate of 5 percent since President Alejandro Toledo, 60, took office in 2001. His government trimmed Peru's deficit to 0.4 percent of gross domestic product from 2.5 percent in 2001. The inflation rate is the lowest in the region at 2.5 percent in March.
Annual exports are forecast to triple to $21 billion this year. Peru is the world's fourth-largest producer of copper, the fifth in gold, the third of zinc and the largest of fish meal. The country has Latin America's fifth-largest reserves of natural gas.
Peru's benchmark stock index is the world's fourth-best performer this year with a 32 percent gain in dollar terms, according to Bloomberg. The nation's dollar-denominated bonds yield on average 2.1 percentage points more than U.S. Treasuries of similar maturity, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Valdivia said he is concerned about Humala's pledges to boost corporate taxes and increase health and education spending.
``Investors are worried Humala will raise taxes on mining companies, take them over or do something else equally radical,'' Valdivia, who manages $230 million of emerging market assets at Emerging Sovereign Group, said in a telephone interview from New York. ``He's not been articulate on what he plans to do.''
Polls
An Apoyo poll published yesterday showed Humala with 27 percent support compared with 23 percent for both for both Flores and Garcia. Another survey, by Lima-based Datum gave Humala 26 percent and Lourdes and Garcia tied with 24 percent.
The Apoyo poll, which surveyed 3,892 people, had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. The Datum poll, which also said 23 percent of the electorate is undecided, polled 2,536 people and had a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
Toledo, who repeatedly has criticized Humala's campaign pledges, yesterday called on voters to oppose ``authoritarianism'' in the election and vote for a presidential candidate who will build and not destroy the nation.
``It's been a major effort to build our democracy,'' Toledo said in a nationwide broadcast on state television station TNP last night. ``Don't let authoritarianism through the front or back door.''
Peru's 16 million voters are also casting ballots today for two vice-presidents, a 120-member Congress and seven candidates to the Andean Parliament. Twenty candidates are running for president and 3,000 for Congress..
Investor Concerns
Humala's emergence as a favorite among voters caused Peru's stock market index to drop 2.5 percent the week of March 20. The central bank last week raised the benchmark lending rate to a three-year high of 5 percent to guard against a possible decline after this weekend's election. The sol rallied 0.6 percent on April 7 to 3.3585 per dollar after the central bank's rate increase.
Garcia's support among voters has increased in the past several polls. The former president served between 1985 and 1990 and ended his term amid hyperinflation -- consumer prices doubled daily toward the end of his presidency -- and an escalating guerrilla war that left at least 15,000 dead during that time. He returned to Peru in 2001 after nine years in self-exile in Paris.
Garcia lost a re-election bid against Toledo in a run-off in 2001 after edging out Flores in the first round.
`Market-Friendly'
``Garcia won't be as market-friendly as Flores, but he'll be less unfriendly than Humala,'' said Franco Uccelli, an analyst at Bear Stearns Cos. in Boca Raton, Florida.
Flores, who is seeking to become the Andean nation's first woman president after losing a bid for the presidency in 2001, has campaigned on pledges to grant greater access to credit and training for farmers and small businesses, while promising to respect contracts signed between the government and investors.
Flores vowed to counter the influence of Chavez, who began an initiative for a regional trade bloc to replace U.S. President George W. Bush's Free Trade Agreement for the Americas.
Toledo pulled Peru's ambassador from Venezuela in January after Chavez, 51, called Flores ``the candidate of the oligarchy'' and publicly backed Humala's candidacy.
posted by Alice at
Sunday, April 09, 2006
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