MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Peruvian president says he’s rather fond of Chavez with whom fights are over

The two charismatic leaders during one of the many regional summits

Peruvian outgoing president Alan García said on Sunday that the days of rivalry and fights with his peer Hugo Chavez are over and admitted he’s quite fond of the Venezuelan president whom he considers a man “respectful of institutions and power”.

“If we had a conflict with Hugo, now we don’t. The fifteen rounds are over, why return to the ring as a mad boxer”, said President García in a long Sunday interview with the Ecuadorian newspaper ‘Expreso’.

García who will be stepping down next July 28 said that for several years with Chavez “we were strong adversaries”, but at the end he realized that the Venezuela leader, is also a military officer and as such “most respectful of institutions and power”.

“While I was a candidate he said awful things about me and I learnt to reply with similar awful things. But I realized the devil wasn’t such a devil, and later we coincided in many meetings and we were able to speak things over and I always tell him, “I am kind of fond about you besides the fact you are appealing to a more intelligent speech”, confessed the Peruvian president.

García and Chavez were involved in several verbal confrontations since the ultra nationalist former Army officer Ollanta Humala was running for the presidency in 2006. García beat Humala in the run-off and campaigned claiming he was being financed by the Venezuelan leader.

Humala currently with a more moderate speech and a pro-business attitude is competing in one of the closest run-off presidential campaign with Keiko Fujimori, daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori, jailed on corruption and human rights abuse charges.