MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Peru: choosing between “bad and worse”

One of Peru's top novelists described the political option faced by Peruvians in next year's presidential election as one between bad and worse.

"Again we have to choose between AIDS and terminal cancer" said Alfredo Bryce Echenique speaking from the International Guadalajara Book Fair in Mexico.

The 66-year-old writer who together with renowned author Mario Vargas Llosa are the most outstanding living Peruvian authors, was referring to next April presidential race and the two leading candidates, retired Army Colonel Ollanta Humala and former President Alan Garcia, plus the shadow cast by Alberto Fujimori currently detained in Chile pending an extradition request to Peru to face charges of corruption and human rights abuse.

"The three of them are populists and populism is one of the worst evils, almost as bad as militarism and dictatorship in Latin America" said the author of "Un mundo para Julius" which became an instant classic when published in 1970.

Bryce Echenique had particularly harsh words for Humala, who promises to champion the cause of Peru's generally marginalized Indians, saying the former officer is creating "a racist movement, appealing to the worst instincts of Peruvian society".

Ollanta Humala, who with his brother Antauro organized a brief uprising against then-President Fujimori in October 2000, leads the Peruvian Nationalist Movement, which preaches a volatile mix of nostalgia for the Inca Empire, xenophobia and denigration of democratic institutions which he parallels with corruption.

"I believe it's necessary to warn Peruvians that above all Humala is a military and he will begin a brutal spending spree on armaments of which the poor won't see a cent".

"Our duty is to reach out to Peruvians and tell them to open their eyes; it's a prospect that alarms writers and artists", he underlined.

In "our incomplete societies, artists and writers at times must occupy the space that ought to be filled by an elder statesman", said Bryce Echenique adding that this somehow helps compensate "our weak and corrupt institutions".

"Latinamerican countries still have to elaborate an original economic and political program; we clumsily copy the French Constitution, the French civil code, the Anglo-Saxon parliamentary system. This is surrealism", said Bryce Echenique.

"This does not correspond at all with what one sees on the streets. In other words, education is free and compulsory for all Peruvians, but if there are no schools or teachers, it's simply surrealistic", he highlighted.