LIMA, Peru (AP) - Former President Alan Garcia 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. 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. |