Lima (Peru): Former President Alan Garcia staged a remarkable political comeback in Peru's runoff election, beating a retired army lieutenant to regain control of the country 16 years after his first term ended in economic ruin and rebel violence.
Garcia's victory on Sunday was a blow to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who had endorsed Ollanta Humala, a political upstart many Peruvians saw as dangerous to democracy.
"I want our party this time to demonstrate to the Peruvian people, who have called it to the highest responsibilities, that it will not convert the state into booty," said Garcia, referring to the widespread corruption that marked his first term from 1985-1990, when tens of thousands of party members landed state jobs.
Garcia said voters had sent an overwhelming message to Chavez that they rejected the "strategy of expansion of a militaristic, retrograde model that he has tried to impose in South America."
Chavez extended his regional influence last year with the election of a loyal ally, 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.
Garcia, 57, held an insurmountable lead of 55.5 percent against 44.5 percent for Humala with 77.3 percent of the vote counted, said the head of the electoral agency, Magdalena Chu.
The margin was expected to shrink, however, as Humala's support is strongest in rural areas where vote reporting is slower. Unofficial partial ballot counts by two respected polling companies and a citizen's watchdog group all gave Garcia more than 52 percent of the vote.
Humala, 43, who burst onto the political scene in 2000 while leading a small-scale military rebellion against then-president Alberto Fujimori's foundering corruption-riddled regime, appeared to accept defeat Sunday night. He said his fledging nationalist movement, formed in December, recognized the partial results and ''saluted'' Garcia and his party.
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But his spokeswoman, Cynthia Montes, insisted that he had not acknowledged Garcia's victory and was waiting for final official results.
Humala won a first round of voting on April 9 among 20 candidates. Garcia qualified with a razor-thin victory over the third-place candidate.
Garcia left office in disgrace in 1990 with Peru nearly bankrupt and battered by the devastating Shining Path insurgency. He fled into exile two years later when Fujimori tried to arrest him, returning in 2001 after the Supreme Court ruled that the statute of limitations on corruption charges against him had expired.
Garcia then made a spectacular run for the presidency in Peru's previous election, winning a spot in the runoff and narrowly losing to current President Alejandro Toledo, who is barred legally from seeking a consecutive term.
Seething ethnic and class resentments deeply divide this Andean nation, and Garcia acknowledged that one of his main challenges will be to rid the political class of corruption.
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