por admin » Dom Jun 12, 2011 9:20 am
Humala se va a mantener moderado mientras los precios de los commodities sigan altos, pero si bajan, Humala podria tomar una posicion mas radical, si el dice que va a reformar la constitucion para luchar contra la corrupcion y ayudar a los pobres, esa es la hora de salir volando. Eso es lo que dice el libreto.
LATIN AMERICA NEWSJUNE 11, 2011
Peru's Election of Leftist to Aid Chávez, for a Bit
By JOSÉ DE CÓRDOBA
The election in Peru of populist Ollanta Humala is a timely boost for Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a populist who leads a bloc of like-minded Latin American leftist leaders but whose star has faded in recent years as Venezuela's economy sputtered.
Like Mr. Chávez, Mr. Humala is a former army officer who once led a brief insurrection and has made a political career out of championing the poor. Mr. Humala for years touted the man in Caracas as his good friend and political model. And Mr. Chávez was quick to praise Mr. Humala's victory.
"I'm very satisfied with the victory of democracy in Peru—the victory of Ollanta Humala," Mr. Chávez told reporters during a visit in Brazil after placing a congratulatory phone call to Mr. Humala on Monday. "We wished him much success and we're ready to work together on cooperation, South American integration, Unasur, and all possible bilateral matters."
Despite Mr. Humala's victory, however, Mr. Chávez's clout is unlikely to enjoy more than a temporary lift, analysts say. Beset by mounting economic problems at home, Mr. Chávez's influence has waned recently with the rise of Brazil, a more moderate leftist country enjoying an economic boom.
In fact, Mr. Humala won the election precisely on the promise that he would not try to emulate Mr. Chávez, consciously opting instead for the moderate economic model offered by Brazil's former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. On Friday, during a stop in Brazil, his first foreign visit as president-elect, Mr. Humala described himself as a populist, but said he would use Brazil as a guide on how to use export-led growth to fund social-welfare programs. "The Peruvian economy is very solid, and we need to go to the next level with social inclusion, and we want to use Brazil as an example," he said.
In 2006, Mr. Humala lost his first attempt at becoming president partly because he was seen as too close to the Venezuelan, said University of Lima political scientist Luis Benavente. Now, he said, Mr. Humala has distanced himself from Mr. Chávez and has "repositioned himself, he's a Humala lite."
Mr. Benavente doesn't know whether that was just a pragmatic move by Mr. Humala to win the election or if he really has changed his mind about Mr. Chávez. "It's the great unknown," he said. But financial markets have been encouraged by Mr. Humala's moderate statements since his election.
Mr. Chávez's troubles at home, however, have made him a less-attractive role model.
"Chávez continues to be in serious trouble," said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank. Domestically, the former army officer has been hammered by skyrocketing crime rates, the world's highest inflation rate and a sluggish economy, Mr. Shifter said.
Venezuela also appears to be chronically short of cash, despite high oil prices. Last week, Mr. Chávez said the country will issue an additional $10.5 billion in debt this year—almost doubling the $12 billion amount for debt that the government set as part of this year's budget.
While Mr. Chávez still dominates Venezuelan politics, his popularity has slipped to about 50% from a high of about 70% in 2006, when he won re-election, says Luis Vicente Leon, president of Datanalisis, a Caracas polling firm.
Since coming to power in 1999, Mr. Chávez has used billions of dollars of oil wealth to forge a block of Latin American nations opposed to the U.S. and free- market policies. Allies won power in Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and to some extent, Argentina. Mr. Humala's 2006 campaign was dogged by allegations it received money from Mr. Chávez. Mr. Humala denied the allegations.
Leaders like Bolivia's Evo Morales, a former coca grower, adopted the Chávez political playbook of increasing government control of the economy, boosting spending on the poor and using referendums to change the constitution to allow re-election. Mr. Chávez subsidized Bolivia and handed out cut-rate oil to many Latin American and Caribbean nations.
But Mr. Chávez's allies are not faring well, either. Mr. Morales's popularity plummeted after he tried to trim fuel subsidies, a move he was forced to rescind due to popular unrest. In Ecuador, President Rafael Correa barely won a referendum this year, which critics say broadened the president's powers and limited press freedoms.
Mr. Chávez's mentor and closest ally, Fidel Castro, resigned because of ill health from office in 2008. His successor, Raúl Castro, has instituted feeble reforms designed to broaden the island's tiny private sector—an ideological shift that represents a blow to Mr. Chávez's own ideological pretensions.
In Brazil, Mr. da Silva's successor, Dilma Rousseff, has also been much cooler to Mr. Chávez, who had a warm relationship with the former president.
"Chávez loves being embraced by charismatic leaders like Fidel and Lula," Mr. Shifter said. "Being with Raúl and Dilma is not the same thing."
Mr. Chávez has also lost his favorite foils on the global stage. Former U.S. President George W. Bush, whose invasion of Iraq made him unpopular throughout the region, was succeeded by Barack Obama, who is well liked in Latin America. And Colombia's tough former President Álvaro Uribe was succeeded by President Juan Manuel Santos, who has made maintaining good relations with Mr. Chavez a cornerstone of his policy.
Overall, Latin American leaders are less taken by Mr. Chávez, said Moises Naim, a former Venezuelan cabinet minister and analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "They still love his financial largess…but they are more allergic to getting their photographs taken with him."
Unlike countries such as Nicaragua or Cuba, Peru's booming commodity exports like copper make it less dependent on outside help. "Peru is not in a crisis, it doesn't need financing," Datanalisis' Mr. Leon said.
Mr. Naim says that Mr. Humala is likely to remain a democratic moderate as long as commodity prices are high. But if prices fall, he could take a more radical approach. "If he says it's time to do constitutional reform to fight against corruption and help the poor, then its time to run for the hills," Mr. Naim said. "That's the script."
—Matt Moffett and John Lyons contributed to this article.