RE: GARCIA will win !-Presidential vote--Monday June 5, 2006 3:16 AM
AP Photo XSI16
By MONTE HAYES
Associated Press Writer
LIMA, Peru (AP) - Former President Alan Garcia, whose 1985-90 government left Peru mired in guerrilla violence and economic chaos, appeared headed toward victory over nationalist ex-army officer Ollanta Humala in Sunday's presidential runoff.
It would be a stunning comeback for a man whose name had been equated with political disaster - and a rejection of a political upstart enthusiastically endorsed by Venezuela's anti-U.S. president, Hugo Chavez.
Unofficial partial counts by the polling firm Apoyo and the citizen watchdog group Transparencia gave the center-leftist Garcia more than 52 percent of the vote.
The firms each counted the vote at roughly 1,000 polling stations considered representative of the national vote, and said their counts' margins of error were less than 1 percentage point.
Appearing before hundreds of followers at his campaign headquarters before the first official results were announced, Garcia thanked God for what ``appears to be a victory by the party of the people.''
He said Peruvians had sent an overwhelming message Sunday to Chavez that they wanted no part of the ``strategy of expansion of a militaristic, retrograde model that he has tried to impose in South America.''
A Humala victory could have tilted Peru into the axis of Chavez, who has already extended his regional influence, gaining a loyal ally with the December election of Evo Morales as Bolivia's president. Like Morales, Humala had pledged to punish a corrupt political establishment and redistribute wealth to his country's poor Indian and mestizo majority.
But his radical rhetoric frightened many and won Garcia votes on Peru's more industrialized northern coast and in Lima, the capital, where Garcia said he had won 65 percent of the vote. Humala appeared headed to victory in Peru's heavily Indian southern Andes, a stronghold of his support.
The bitterly fought election between the top finishers in an April election of 20 candidates saw street violence and virulent exchanges of slurs, including from Chavez, who exacerbated the ill will by vigorously endorsing Humala and calling Garcia a crook.
At one point, Garcia was hit in the face by an egg, leaving a nasty bruise. The attack, in the highland city of Cuzco, a stronghold for Humala, was followed hours later by a shootout involving supporters of the two rivals.
In the final days of campaigning, election observers from the Organization of American States urged both sides to tone down the rhetoric and avoid violence.
Mario Vargas Llosa, Peru's most famous novelist and a staunch critic of Garcia, described Humala, 43, as a dangerous autocrat.
``What is at stake in Peru is whether the democracy we have, with all its imperfections, is going to survive or is going to disappear once again and be replaced by a military and nationalist dictator, which is what would happen if Mr. Humala wins,'' said Vargas Llosa, who made an unsuccessful bid to succeed Garcia in 1990.
Garcia, 57, adroitly turned the race into a referendum on Chavez, depicting Humala as an aspiring despot who would fall into lockstep with the Venezuelan's populist economics and Cuba-friendly anti-Americanism.
He labeled Chavez, who is rolling in petrodollars from record-high oil prices, as ``a midget dictator with a big wallet.'' Chavez responded by calling Garcia ``a genuine thief, a demagogue, a liar.''
Humala's radical, anti-establishment rhetoric - he vowed to follow the lead of Chavez and Morales by imposing higher taxes on foreign companies that exploit the nation's natural resources - resonated among Peru's poor, the majority of them dark-skinned mestizos. He attacked the established parties as corrupt and unresponsive to the needs of the poor, and vowed to write a new constitution stripping them of power.
Peru's poor feel they have not benefited from economic growth averaging 5.5 percent annually over the past four years, since the proportion of the population living in poverty dropped just two percentage points to 52 percent.
``We have faith we can develop a nation without discrimination, a society where our young people have a future,'' a smiling Humala told reporters after casting his ballot, avoiding the incendiary rhetoric that marked much of his campaign.
Garcia sought to overcome nightmarish memories of his earlier presidency, with its raging inflation, political violence and long lines for food. He said he was aware some Peruvians ``will hold their noses'' when they voted for him as ``the lesser of two evils,'' but said he was determined not to repeat the errors he made as a young president.
As polls stations opened, Carlos Chavez Rios, a municipal street sweeper whose wrinkled face appeared much older than his 69 years, said he was willing to give Garcia a second chance.
``Alan Garcia made mistakes when he was young. We all make mistakes when we're young. He's mature now and has more experience,'' he said, broom in hand, outside a voting station in a drab working-class district.
But Andres Garcia, a 66-year-old taxi driver, said he cast his ballot for Humala ``so that there is a change.
``A military man is tough. There is too much corruption. Let's hope he can impose order,'' Garcia said. ``If Ollanta can't change this, no one can change it.''