Technologic

Friday night before election weekend. Here in Peru, there is a ley seca rule - literally meaning lay low. No sale of alcohol, no consumption of in public places and no public gatherings allowed for the entire weekend. Adhere or you'd be thrown in jail or fined 1800 soles, gringo or not.

Quite refreshing really. Else it'd be another night of over friendly male locals trying to get off with the huge variety of foreign women in Huanchaco. I'm sure they're probably decent guys in their own right. But when you make your way around the circuit only talking to gringas, you'll end up looking like a blow up doll with an odd shade of skin colour.

Luckily the same cannot be said for the exciting presidential elections in Peru. 5 candidates, neck to neck in terms of popularity, all trying to win the votes of their people. There's a high chance of a second round election in June because it looks unlikely for any of them to receive more than half the votes.

Currently in the lead according to the polls is Ollanta Humala of the Partido Nacionalista Peruano (PNP). Following closely behind is Keiko Fujimori, then former President Alejandro Toledo, and closing up the rear are former Prime Minister Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Luis Castañeda, former mayor of Lima. Here's a quick lowdown on the 5 candidates.

Ollanta Humala

Ran for presidency in 2006 but lost to current president Alan Garcia by only 5% of votes. Military man with many shiny medals to prove it, he is also brother to the notorious Antauro Humala who is now in jail under 25 years sentence for kidnapping 17 police officers, 4 of whom he murdered back in 2005. Some accusations under his name include human rights abuse in the 90's while serving as commander of a jungle military base - we're talking actual torture here; that he started the 2000 military uprising against the (then) Fujimori government, and having close ties with president Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

Notable mention: Mama Humala made a statement in March calling all homosexuals to be shot.

Keiko Fujimori

Daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori whom this glowing Wiki entry belongs to:

She was named First Lady of Peru in 1994 by her father after he stripped the title off her mother (his estranged wife), making her the youngest First Lady in Peru and the history of the Americas at 19 years old.

By the age 25, she had constructed Peru's first pediatric cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit among several orphanages across the land and received the honorary Orden Bernado O'Higgings which is the highest honor a foreigner can receive from the Chilean government thanks to her social accomplishments.

Notable mention: Keiko Fujimori is now working on a project law to make death penalty a punishment for very severe crimes. That, and possibly pardoning her father.

Alejandro Toledo

Former president of Peru from 2001 - 2006 after defeating (then) former (but now) president Alan Garcia. Also the founder of the party Peru Posible, Alejandro Toledo comes from an extremely humble background where his father was a bricklayer and his mother a fishmonger.

While he was in office, he provided local newspapers with much juicy headlines. "President Toledo's illegitimate daugher!" "USD$18,000 - President's salary, USD$200 - teacher's salary" "Peru Posible possibly forged thousands of signatures for re-election, including President Toledo's own signature!" Okay so it was a bit difficult to cram the last one into a headline.

Notable mention: Together with former PM of Spain, Toledo is behind the "Friends of Israel Initiative", a non-Jewish international project which supports Israel's right to exist.

Pedro Pablo Kuczynski a.k.a. P.P.K

Alumni of both Oxford and Princeton, P.P.K is a bit of an economics expert. As the Minister of Energy and Mines in the 80's, he sponsored a law promoting energy and oil exploitation but that didn't go too well because it granted tax exemptions to foreign oil companies.

In December last year, Mr Kuczynksi announced that he had started proceedings to renounce his U.S citizenship but was not able to show any proof to his claims. In March however, he laughed in the faces of non believers and produced a document relating to this. Alas, despite having an Ivy League education, he must not be good with dates because the document showed that he had only begun the process a few days earlier and not in December.

Notable mention: Freshly honored Nobel laureate, writer Mario Vargas Llosa not so secretly sent "emissaries" to P.P.K telling him to drop out of the elections in favour of Alejandro Toledo.

Luis Castañeda

Former mayor of Lima from 2003-2010. A report was released last week by the new mayor of Lima, Susana Villaran (a bit of a leftist herself) detailing abandoned and poorly built infrastructure projects during his term as mayor. To add on, budgets were increased at that time and the appointment of the International Migrations Organization as supervisor and executor of most of the projects. Not a problem really...except that their commissions were close to 50 million soles.

Notable mention: Ex Miss Ecuador/current deputy mayor of Quito, María Sol Corral mysteriously accompanied the presidential hopeful to a debate recently. He referred to her as his 'amulet' to which she responded that he is very "dulce, suave y delicada." I don't think translation is needed for that.

In the past 5 years, poverty in Peru has dropped by 10% from 44.5%. Economically the country has grown as well thanks to more flexible regulations and open trade regime amongst other factors. But chatting to my adult students and other Peruvians, I noticed that more important to them than reducing poverty rate is the state of corruption in the country. With their manifesto centred around fighting corruption and transforming the current neo-liberal system to one that's more "para la gente" - for the people - leftist Humala and his Gana Perú party could be just what the people are looking for.