Ollanta Humala, the former army officer and populist-nationalist who leads in the run-up to Sunday's presidential election in Peru, says he wants to construct "a Latin American family" of like-minded peoples and governments. That has triggered fears in Washington that Peru could soon join Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, Evo Morales' Bolivia and Fidel Castro's Cuba in an anti-US, or at least anti-Bush administration, radical front.
But if he is to achieve his ambition, Humala will have to sort out his own extraordinary family first. His brother, Antauro, is in jail after leading a bloody insurrection last year against President Alejandro Toledo. In a recently broadcast tape, Antauro apparently demanded that Toledo and the entire Peruvian Congress be executed by firing squad for treason.
Humala's father, Isaac, founded an ultra-nationalist movement, Etnocacerismo, that stressed the racial superiority of "copper-colored" Indian and mixed-blood mestizos over lighter-skinned Peruvians of Spanish descent. His mother suggested gay men should be shot to end "immorality in the streets." Another brother, Ulises, is running against him in Sunday's election.
Humala, whose first name means "warrior who sees all," also faces persistent questions about his own democratic credentials. He previously supported Etnocacerismo and, like Chavez, he launched a failed coup, in his case against the now disgraced president Alberto Fujimori in 2000. He has been accused of human-rights abuses when he commanded a remote army base during the Shining Path Maoist insurgency in the 1990s -- charges he denies.
And although he insists he is not anti-American, his stated admiration for General Juan Velasco -- who ran Peru in a dictatorship from 1968-1975, nationalized industries and snuffed out independent media -- has increased worries about a return to the age of the authoritarian caudillo and anti-market policies. Where Velasco courted the Soviet Union, Humala might look to China.
"We must impose discipline, we must bring order to the country," Humala told a rally in Lima.
If elected, he pledged (again like Chavez, who has controversially endorsed him) to rewrite the Constitution, industrialize coca production, cancel a free-trade pact with the US and increase state control of the important mining sector.
"Our motherland is not for sale," he said.
But these and other efforts to present himself, the child of a privileged upbringing, as a champion of the oppressed in a country where about half the population lives on US$1.25 a day or less have prompted accusations of opportunism and worse.
"Maintain democracy or go to dictatorship: that is what is at stake in these elections," the novelist Mario Vargas Llosa said.
Lima's political establishment and media mostly feel the same way; so do the traditional leftwing parties that oppose Humala. But surveys suggest professional politicians are almost universally despised as self-serving. This context helps explain the apparent popularity of Humala, who has not previously run for office, according to John Crabtree of the Centre for Latin American Studies at Oxford University.
"Humala could be expected to draw support from those dissatisfied with the political system and those who feel they have received little benefit from years of buoyant economic growth," Crabtree wrote in World Today magazine.
Unemployment and insecurity, typified by low incomes, a widening wealth gap, high urban crime, drug trafficking and a lingering rural threat posed by leftwing extremists, were key issues.
The most likely electoral antidote to Humala, and to US fears of another destabilizing regional lurch into pseudo-revolutionary populism, is Lourdes Flores Nano, a pro-business former congresswoman who has increasingly espoused social reform. Commentators say her gender may prove a positive point among female voters fed up with bossy, macho men who fail to deliver.
The last survey before the vote showed Flores five points behind Humala, with 26 percent support, but likely to triumph in a second round if (as seems probable) neither wins outright on Sunday. Such an outcome would echo the recent groundbreaking presidential victory in Chile of the New Labour-style moderate Michelle Bachelet.
In a recently published interview, Julia Sweig of the US Council on Foreign Relations suggested the current political volatility across Latin America was socially rather than ideologically inspired.
It reflected a lack of confidence in "existing institutions and traditional elites," rather than a desire for revolution. But in badly governed, alienated and angry Peru, that could amount thing.
"The division in this country is not right versus left," Humala said. "It's the business elite against the rest."
Why is Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not a “happy camper” these days regarding Taiwan? Taiwanese have not become more “CCP friendly” in response to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) use of spies and graft by the United Front Work Department, intimidation conducted by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Armed Police/Coast Guard, and endless subversive political warfare measures, including cyber-attacks, economic coercion, and diplomatic isolation. The percentage of Taiwanese that prefer the status quo or prefer moving towards independence continues to rise — 76 percent as of December last year. According to National Chengchi University (NCCU) polling, the Taiwanese
It would be absurd to claim to see a silver lining behind every US President Donald Trump cloud. Those clouds are too many, too dark and too dangerous. All the same, viewed from a domestic political perspective, there is a clear emerging UK upside to Trump’s efforts at crashing the post-Cold War order. It might even get a boost from Thursday’s Washington visit by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. In July last year, when Starmer became prime minister, the Labour Party was rigidly on the defensive about Europe. Brexit was seen as an electorally unstable issue for a party whose priority
US President Donald Trump is systematically dismantling the network of multilateral institutions, organizations and agreements that have helped prevent a third world war for more than 70 years. Yet many governments are twisting themselves into knots trying to downplay his actions, insisting that things are not as they seem and that even if they are, confronting the menace in the White House simply is not an option. Disagreement must be carefully disguised to avoid provoking his wrath. For the British political establishment, the convenient excuse is the need to preserve the UK’s “special relationship” with the US. Following their White House
US President Donald Trump’s return to the White House has brought renewed scrutiny to the Taiwan-US semiconductor relationship with his claim that Taiwan “stole” the US chip business and threats of 100 percent tariffs on foreign-made processors. For Taiwanese and industry leaders, understanding those developments in their full context is crucial while maintaining a clear vision of Taiwan’s role in the global technology ecosystem. The assertion that Taiwan “stole” the US’ semiconductor industry fundamentally misunderstands the evolution of global technology manufacturing. Over the past four decades, Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, led by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), has grown through legitimate means
RSS