Peru Elections: Garcia wins
Alan Garcia has won the second round of the Peruvian presidential elections. These are good news.
This election was of paramount importance not only for Peru but for South America. Peru was deciding the future of its democracy and its prospects for development. It was important for South America as well, as Peru was the next country under the shadow of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez (Chavez publicly supported far-left candidate Ollanta Humala and threatened to cut all ties with Peru in case Garcia won -for the sake of Peru, I hope he holds to his word). It is great to see Peru not following the same path Bolivia chose.
Thus, by choosing Garcia Peruvians have shown that they will not be bought off with a couple of populist slogans and half-truths. They have decided what was best (the lesser of two evils, actually) for them and their future. Contrary to other bloggers, however, if Garcia's previous term is something to go by, I am not very optimistic. While Garcia is certainly the better choice, a mediocre/bad term would only serve to give Humala momentum for the next election. So, thinking in the longer term, I do not think that the Chavez/Humala threat is completely gone.
The following sites have great coverage on the elections:
Publius Pundit has a great roundup, with a great collection of images.
Peru election 2006 has the news on Humala conceding the election to Garcia (here), results as they appear, quick counts and everything related to the election.
Inka's great new blog on Peru, Journal Peru, has a minute-by-minute coverage of the elections.
Peru's Electoral Processes National Office (ONPE) has the official count of the ballots.
Peru's main newspapers El Comercio and La Republica (both in Spanish).
Peru, Peru Elections, Ollanta, Humala, Ollanta Humala, Garcia, Alan Garcia
This election was of paramount importance not only for Peru but for South America. Peru was deciding the future of its democracy and its prospects for development. It was important for South America as well, as Peru was the next country under the shadow of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez (Chavez publicly supported far-left candidate Ollanta Humala and threatened to cut all ties with Peru in case Garcia won -for the sake of Peru, I hope he holds to his word). It is great to see Peru not following the same path Bolivia chose.
Thus, by choosing Garcia Peruvians have shown that they will not be bought off with a couple of populist slogans and half-truths. They have decided what was best (the lesser of two evils, actually) for them and their future. Contrary to other bloggers, however, if Garcia's previous term is something to go by, I am not very optimistic. While Garcia is certainly the better choice, a mediocre/bad term would only serve to give Humala momentum for the next election. So, thinking in the longer term, I do not think that the Chavez/Humala threat is completely gone.
The following sites have great coverage on the elections:
Publius Pundit has a great roundup, with a great collection of images.
Peru election 2006 has the news on Humala conceding the election to Garcia (here), results as they appear, quick counts and everything related to the election.
Inka's great new blog on Peru, Journal Peru, has a minute-by-minute coverage of the elections.
Peru's Electoral Processes National Office (ONPE) has the official count of the ballots.
Peru's main newspapers El Comercio and La Republica (both in Spanish).
Peru, Peru Elections, Ollanta, Humala, Ollanta Humala, Garcia, Alan Garcia
posted by Alvaro Ruiz-Navajas at 6/05/2006
2 Comments:
While I'm usually cynical about the practical consequences of elections, I don't see how this can be construed as a bad thing. Glad to hear that not everything is going wrong in the world for the moment.
Hi. I am not saying that Garcia wining the election wasn't a good thing. I'm just saying that it will take more to get rid of the Chavista influence in Peru than APRA. After all, UPP has the majority in the parliament.
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