Peruvians Defy Rebel Threats, Vote for Mayors

Thousands of Peruvians defied rebel threats and mobbed polling stations to vote Sunday in mayoral elections. Maoist guerrillas trying to disrupt the election killed a candidate and blew up a church and a school.

Facing hefty fines for failure to go to the polls, voters lined up for blocks in front of Lima polling stations. Turnout rose after a slow start in the Andean highlands, where the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) movement is strongest.

Calling the elections a farce, Sendero Luminoso urged Peruvians to boycott the elections. Peru has 1,947 municipalities, but election authorities said there were no candidates in at least 86 towns due to death threats by the rebels, who have killed scores of officials and candidates this year alone.

Authorities said the guerrillas shot and killed the mayoral candidate of the governing center-left American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA) early Sunday in Azangaro, near the Bolivian border 470 miles southeast of Lima.

In Huancayo, 140 miles east of Lima, the rebels dynamited a church and a school early Sunday.

The center-right Democratic Front, led by novelist and presidential candidate Mario Vargas Llosa, was expected to win the mayoral seats in most cities. But in Lima, millionaire television executive Ricardo Belmont, an independent, was projected as the winner.

Belmont, 44, has gathered a huge following among Lima residents by blaming traditional political parties for the city’s crumbling transport and rampant crime.

Vargas Llosa said the large turnout in the elections would deal a psychological blow to the rebels.

“The big loser in these elections will be terrorism, because the immense majority of Peruvians are showing the world that they want to live in freedom and peace,” Vargas Llosa told reporters.