MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Peru's Garcia describes himself as a “pragmatic Socialist”

Peruvian elected president Alan Garcia who tomorrow Friday takes office said he feels closer to the “modern left”, which he considers is represented by Brazilian president Lula da Silva and Chile's Michelle Bachelet, rather than that of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez , Bolivian Evo Morales or Cuba's Fidel Castro.

In an interview published in the French daily "Le Monde", Mr. Garcia said he considers very interesting the social and economic approaches undertaken by Lula da Silva and Ms Bachelet, and emphasized he defends a "modern socialism which overcomes challenges with ideas, and not with money or weapons".

"Chile and Brazil are pragmatic examples which have launched a strong social development, open to outside ideas and which has proved very successful with positive results", said Alan Garcia.

The Peruvian elected president who for months has had repeated verbal exchanges with Venezuelan president Chavez said that "we have different perspectives of the world and how it works".

Garcia said that it is still much engrained in the Latinamerican left "the ideas and interpretations of the (Paris) May 1968 events", which believe and sponsor the idea that "a country develops with a closed economy and rejecting global trade and exchanges".

Contrary to this way of addressing events, Garcia proposes "taking advantage of global trade and investment to help bolster social justice and more jobs in the country". "I'm firmly convinced of this option, since I don't have oil or rich resources, which obviously distances me from the current Venezuelan point of view", he added.

Finally Mr. Garcia promised to work hard for a closer link between Chile and the Andean Community of Nations, CAN, which "will reinforce the area and even set the foundations for a free trade area".

"We have much to learn from the Chileans in trade and opening to the world", concluded the elected president of Peru who tomorrow takes office.