Populist Wins 1st-Round Peru Vote : Garcia Dominates Large Field in Presidential Elections

Alan Garcia, a magnetic young populist, won a commanding victory here Sunday in the first round of Peru’s presidential elections, sealing with virtual certainty his ultimate triumph.

Garcia, 35, the candidate of the center-left American Popular Revolutionary Alliance, popularly called the Apra party, dominated a nine-candidate field. As expected, he fell short of a required absolute majority, but his strong showing made Garcia the overwhelming favorite in a June runoff against Marxist Alfonso Barrantes, the mayor of Lima.

Barrantes, 58, the candidate the United Left, an eight-party Marxist coalition, ran a distant second Sunday, with Garcia outpolling him by a margin of about 2 to 1.

Maoist guerrillas mounted a smattering of attacks against polling places and public utilities around the country but failed to disrupt a heavy, orderly, enthusiastic--and obligatory--turnout among 8.2 million voters.

With more than half of the votes in Sunday night, Peru’s leading television network projected final returns of 45% for Garcia and 22% for Barrantes. Other Peruvian news organizations projected similar results.

Center-right candidate Luis Bedoya Reyes ran third with 11%, while centrist Javier Alva Orlandini, heading the ticket of outgoing President Fernando Belaunde Terry’s Popular Action party, lagged with 4%. Five minor candidates shared 1% among them. The remaining 18% were blank or spoiled ballots.

In Lima, with over 2 million votes cast, Garcia had 47%, Barrantes 22% and Bedoya 19%.

Late Sunday night, a jubilant but serene Garcia called the vote “a victory for the Peruvian people. This is not a vote of protest but a vote of hope,” Garcia said. “The people have delivered. Now, it is up to the politicians.” In a graceful gesture that belied tensions among their supporters, Barrantes went to Garcia’s house Sunday night to congratulate him.

The Apra party also dominated elections for the 60 senators and 180 representatives in a new Congress, but it was not clear Sunday night if it had achieved majority control of either house.

Garcia ran strong in all parts of the country, but particularly in the north, where Apra was founded more than 60 years ago by the late Victor Raul Haya de la Torre, a legendary Latin American revolutionary figure.

Under Garcia, Apra has maintained its historic position as an urban-based, multi-class party wedded to populism and nationalism. Never in its long, always contentious and sometimes violent history has Apra been so close to winning the presidency.

A lawyer who was educated in Lima and in Western Europe, Garcia won a seat in the lower house of Congress in 1980 in his only previous campaign for public office. He vaulted to national prominence as Apra’s new secretary general in 1982 and characterizes the modern Apra as social democratic.

Garcia appears to have succeeded in neutralizing a historic enmity toward Apra by the Peruvian armed forces, which rejected Haya as too radical. This seems no military impediment, however, to Garcia as successor to President Belaunde, whose centrist government has been plagued by economic decline and growing social unrest.

A riveting speaker, Garcia ran principally against Barrantes. He maintained Apra tradition by attacking both communism and imperialism during his campaign.

For example, he calls for destruction of Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas who have rampaged through the Andes for five years, but he also favors a mixed economy with greater say for workers in management.

Sunday night, Apra leaders criticized court decisions that for the first time require blank and voided ballots to be included in determining the totals on which the percentages of the candidates are calculated, saying that Garcia would have won a majority and avoided a runoff if they had been thrown out as Apra had demanded.

In a decisive second round, which will probably be held in mid-June, Garcia should have little trouble expanding his constituency with votes that went to candidates who ran to his political right on Sunday.

Barrantes, who stands on the extreme left of the electoral spectrum, cannot expect much additional second-round support.

If Garcia succeeds Belaunde as expected on July 28, it will mark the first constitutional transfer of power in Peru between elected civilians in about four decades.