ELECTION UPDATE: CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE FILINGS

UNCLAS LIMA 000644

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV SNAR PREL ECON PE
SUBJECT: ELECTION UPDATE: CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE FILINGS
COMPLETE; AND HUMALA FACES CONTINUING TROUBLES

REF: A. LIMA 633

B. LIMA 494

C. LIMA 453

D. LIMA 382

E. LIMA 351

F. LIMA 346

Sensitive but Unclassified. Please protect accordingly.

--------------
Summary
--------------


1. (U) Twenty five political parties met the 2/8 deadline for
filing their congressional lists, resulting in some 3,000
Congressional candidates for 120 seats. The two leading
presidential contenders, center-right Lourdes Flores and
ultra-nationalist, anti-system candidate Ollanta Humala were
both battered in the press for including candidates with past
or ongoing judicial investigations. Humala faced increasing
charges of human rights violations from his time as army base
commander in the early 1990's, but his party spokesman fired
back that the testimonies were bought by Flores' party. End
summary

--------------
Front-runner Flores
--------------

2.(U) Flores spent the past week defending her party's
congressional candidates. As many as 17 Unidad Nacional
candidates reportedly are involved in open judicial
processes, while several others are alleged to have had
close ties to Fujimori's former national security adviser
Vladimiro Montesinos. Flores maintained the candidates on
her list and did not bow to pressure. On 2/6 Garcia
challenged Flores, and only Flores, to debate him on the hot
domestic issue of the state pension system and the freedom of
workers to voluntarily decline participation (Garcia favors,
Flores opposes). Flores said she would not debate with
Garcia on the specific issue, but called on the Ombudsman to
organize general debates in March. Beatriz Merino, Chief
Ombudsman, declined the responsibility stating her
organization's need to monitor the electoral process and not
get directly involved. Flores continued to support debates
in March before the first round and said this would allow
each candidate to explain his/her ideas. Humala rejected the
possibility of a debate before the first round, while
Paniagua said he is willing to participate in a debate under
any formula.

--------------
Humala's Troubles
--------------


3. (U) Ollanta Humala's campaign continues to be on the
defensive as further allegations of human rights violations
and turmoil regarding members of his congressional list
dominated his press coverage. On 2/7 Humala admitted he was
known by the alias "Captain Carlos" (Ref B),but claims he
was not/not Captain Carlos Gonzalez, who purportedly
committed human rights crimes. Humala denied killing anyone
while he was commander of an army base at Madre Mia during
the early 1990's, and called on the Defense Ministry to
respond to the accusations against him. Nationalist Party
spokesman, Daniel Abugattas went on the offensive and claimed
that Unidad Nacional paid for false testimonies against
Humala and that respected television journalist Cesar
Hildebrandt was removed from his program because he was going
to reveal evidence of this plot. The Human Rights
Coordinator's office announced it was preparing criminal
denunciations against Humala.


4. (U) In response to accusations that candidates on his
congressional ticket had criminal records, Humala asked all
UPP candidates to put their candidacies at his disposition.
For his party's official congressional list submitted before
the 2/8 deadline, thirteen candidates were changed. Liliana
Humala, Ollanta's cousin and fellow nationalist, switched
parties before the deadline to join the Democratic

Reconstruction party. Humala's Congressional list brought to
a head the internal conflicts within his UPP party and
between it and the Nationalist Party of Peru. Some of
Humala's provincial bases in both parties rebelled and said
they would not support his candidacy because he rejected
their internally nominated candidates.

--------------
Military Vote
--------------


5. (U) Minister of Defense Marciano Rengifo said that though
85,000 military are registered to vote for the first time,
over half (46,500) will be responsible for electoral security
and thus will be unable to vote. Humala called on the JNE to
order the National Office for Electoral Process (ONPE) to
install voting tables for the transient military and police
guarding the electoral process and those who are outside
their voting districts, noting that otherwise on-duty
officers cannot vote. JNE President Enrique Mendoza
dismissed Humala's request and explained that it was
technically and economically impossible. However, Mendoza
called on the Defense and Interior ministries to cooperate in
letting on-duty personnel vote.

--------------
Comment
--------------


6. (SBU) The campaign generally is becoming more
personalistic, with increased reporting on the verbal swipes
candidates are taking at each other, and considerably less on
debating the issues. There have even been reports of
outbreaks of violence between supporters on a limited basis
to date. Interestingly, this more aggressive ambiance has
led to little change in the polling numbers (Ref A). The
Martha Chavez rise could split the anti-system vote which
Humala depends on, but it might also draw off poor women who
are currently Flores supporters. Garcia has been stagnant,
but should not be counted out due to his charisma, political
acumen, and APRA party machine. Paniagua is becoming more
irrelevant and, if his downward trend continues, he may be
pressured to drop out and further pressured to endorse
someone else. End Comment.
POWERS