Humala distances himself from Chavez model
Peru presidential hopeful says his links to the Venezuelan leader will not affect his vision for country.
Ollanta Humala, a leading contender for the post of Peru’s presidency, has said that his links to the Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez will not affect his vision for the country if elected.
With the race tightening in the run-up to the June 5 presidential election, Humala told Al Jazeera’s Mariana Sanchez that his campaign is not financed in any way by Chavez and that his policies will be independent from Venezuela’s.
“The Venezuelan model cannot be applied in Peru. We won’t, because it’s different realities. We are coming out of a dictatorship in the 1990s, and we won’t return to an authoritarian government where the executive manages the economic policies,” he said.
Humala’s conservative rival Keiko Fujimori, who is the daughter of Alberto Fujimori, the former president jailed for crimes against humanity, has said that her policies will be independent from her father’s dictatorial policies if she is elected.
Polls show the country’s voter base is deeply divided, essentially giving each of the two candidates equal footing, as the country remains in the midst of a recovery process from decades of social and political shock waves.