Susana Villarán is the new Mayor of Lima (probably)

Holy reds-in-beds, Batman! The Hoi-Polloi of Lima will be shaking in their boots to find themselves rules by a....sorry, can't do it cos she's not some raving hard lefty commie puppet. Susana Villarán, now looking very close to the winner's circle for the race to be Lima's mayor (58% of votes counted and she's over 2% up....in the world of stats that's getting very close to a lock), is a centre-left social democrat, an upholder of good things and someone who's railed against Castro and Chávez more times than is necessary for a human with a brain to understand where she's coming from.

Anyway, here's the vote count so far, at 8:40am Monday Lima time. Gotta love Peru...compare the 120m votes that Brazil counted and published in four hours last night to the 60% of 5m votes that Peru has taken 28 hours to count so far. Time to throw the abacuses away, dudes.

Finally, way back in 2008 this humble corner of cyberspace interviewed Villarán. You can find that Q&A on this link to know more about her.

UPDATE: 2pm Lima time and the latest count with 65.188% of the votes officially registered is Vallarán 38.77%, Flores 37.18%. Data

Chart of the day is.....

...an update of the race to be Mayor of Lima Peru, the main event in the Municipal elections coming up on October 3rd:

Since we last noted this race on August 13th, the then-2nd placed candidate Alex Kouri has been barred by the Peruvian election authorities from running because 1) he's a dumbass and 2) he wasn't a resident of the City of Lima. So with the field narrowed down we see the race developing into a woman vs woman contest (and this is good). Lourdes Flores (right wing) is still in the lead but Susana Villaran (centre-left) is closing in and making a real fight of it. In July Susana was polling 4%,  in early August 7.5%, now 21.7%. There's still a big gap to make up, but the trend is her friend. and it'll likely be much closer come the big day.

By the way, the August 16th numbers were those from the same IMA pollsters and they assumed Kouri would be barred, so it's a fair comparative. Data from the survey results here.

Final thought: If you're asking why you should care about a city Mayorial election in a South American country, it's a fair question of course. So the answer is

1) It's excellent news that two women are fighting out the top position and most likely the job itself. Good for South American politics, good for all of us to have women in power seats.

2) This election, especially the Lima vote, will set the scene for next year's big shebang Presidentials in Peru. Flores is rightwing, Villaran is centreleft (though her opponents are trying to paint her as more radical. Big clues to how 2011 will go, coming soon.

3) If 1) and 2) aren't enough for you then that's still fine by me, but perhaps you should ask yourself just why you're reading a blog about LatAm written by some dumbass South of the equator in the first place.

Have. Nice. Day.


UPDATE: Another reliable polling company publishes this morning and puts Lourdes on 33% and Susana on 27%. Spanish language link here.

Polling for the new Mayor of Lima, Peru

On October 3rd, Peru runs its municipal elections to vote in mayors and regional representatives in an election that will shape the 2011 Presidentials. The most important race, and one that will really set the scene for next year, is that for the mayor of Lima.

Pollsters IMA published its third monthly voter intention poll today on the race and the results are interesting. Here's the chart:

click to enlarge

Lourdes Flores, a right wing candidate who has failed several times at runs for the Presidency, is leading and steady in first place. In second and fading fast is Alex Kouri, up to this year the mayor of neighbouring Callao but a person tainted with plenty of suspected corruption over the years.

But the most interesting thing about today's poll is the rapid rise of centre-left Susana Villarán, now holding 9.7% of voter intentions, double that of last month. Susana is a rare breed amongst Peruvian politicians in that she's honest and trustworthy. Seeing her rise in the polls here suggests that Peru is actually maturing as a political entity and is looking for a break from the usual mafioso-type of representatives that look after themselves first and care little about the people they govern.

We wish Susana well, hope she makes a serious run at second place soon and goes on to fight it out with Lourdes.

Clintons do South America

The lady Clinton is today at the OAS conference in Lima, where she'll stick up for her bff Lobo, try to get his country back in the club and neatly ignore all the human rights abuses that have been going on recently (what number are we up to now? I think it's 10 reporters murdered in Honduras since he took over). So once she's done listening to the commie creeps and getting the Honduras veto in her face once again, she'll split for Ecuador where Studmuffin will make eyes at her, then off to Colombia for time with both mockus and Santos as well as fond farewells to the NastyBrutishShort one.

Meanwhile, the gentleman Clinton is in Argentina today raising funds for the Clinton coffers by giving one of those keynote speeches and then one of those clubby-type intimate gatherings he does for serious moolah in a hotel in Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires. We'd expect him to ...ahem....enjoy the varied nightlife of BsAs in the same style as last time he hit town too. That was in June last year when he checked out Cocodrilo, usually named as a 'gentleman's nightclub' by the press but in fact (and folks, you're reading an eyewitness to the place who went in his bachelor days) it's a whorehouse. On his last visit, Clinton spend the evening there and was entertained by a $1,000 pole dancer (she gets that price for being a minor celebrity, as she was once an Argy Big Brother contender) who told the yellow rags afterwards that Slick Willie "wanted more".

So there you go; Hillary in Lima and Bill in Buenos Aires. Which one is the more newsworthy? YOU BE THE JUDGE!

UPDATE: On this link find a bunch of 16 photos from last night's reception held for Bill's sake in BsAs. It's a measure of the pulling power of the Clinton dude that this photo exists.....
.....as the guy with Bill is Gerardo Werthein, head of the very powerful 'W' Group (the Werthein family biz, amongst other things big part owner of Telecom Argentina) and a notoriously camera shy person (he has this kidnapping paranoia, apparently). Also seen in other photos are his father and brother posing with Bill, plenty of local politico bigwigs and the stock standard shots of Bill gawking at women's breasts. Go check it out.

"Lima morning" by Alfredo Deza

Unnoticed street life in Peru's capital city, La Victoria and Villa Maria del Triunfo.

Click the figure below to see the preview of the book.


See more:
Lima morning by Alfredo Deza

Where's the beef?

The Yerbateros Abbatoir in the Ate district of Lima, Peru, has a chequered history including criminal investigations for fraud and an owner, recently released from jail, that apparently owes the taxman S/53m (U$18.4m) in back taxes.

But today's news is more fun (if that's the right word), as last night video was taken of a lorry entering the abbatoir with 20 donkeys and horses on board that were to be slaughtered and then the meat passed off as beef.

And the owner? He haw he haw he haw to know better than that.

Big Mac&Fries served, the end.

Lenin Moreno, Ecuador's Vice President, hospitalized for blood loss in Lima, Peru

A strange story just hitting the airwaves. Lenin Moreno, Ecuador's Veep and number two politico behind Correa, was hospitalized in Lima, Peru today due to blood loss. Details of how the blood was lost are not known as yet, but apparently it started while he was at his hotel in Lima this morning. Moreno has been confined to a wheelchair since 1998 after being shot during an attempted robbery.

He was admitted as an emergency case but right now is out of danger, according to the sketchy reports at least. He is still under observation in the Lima Armed Forces hospital.

Finally in Peru, a protest that Lima can't ignore

Y'see, what usually happens in Peru is that some protest starts in the provinces and everyone ignores it. So the protestors wait a while...then block a few roads...and then the government shoots them all and hides the bodies (according to those people tracking the case there are 61 people still missing from the Bagua massacre, by the way).

But today it was day one of a brand new protest and it's already captured the headlines of all Peruvian newspapers, TV and radio...because it's in Lima. Transport workers (buses, taxis etc) are striking to reject a new set of transport rules that are due to come into effect tomorrow, including all sorts of new fines for doing all sorts of naughty roadthings. The result is that 50% of Lima didn't get to work on time today and 46 protestors have been arrested (so far) by tear-gas shooting policia (nice video on that link).

If it were anywhere else in the country nobody would give a damn and you'd have to search hard for the merest hint of a story; in fact the strike is concentrated around the Lima/Callao conurbation and reports from other major cities (Chiclayo, Cusco, Arequipa, Trujillo etc etc) are that transport is either nearly normal or normal. But you'd never guess it from the front pages that are screaming about "Peru halted" and other types of Republic Of Lima balderdash.

Peru; a very silly country with a very silly capital city populated by very silly people.

Whatever makes you think Peru's APRA is a bunch of corrupt scum?

Asia, as well as being a continent, is the name of a coastal district of Peru that covers a 50km stretch of the most desirable and expensive coastline on the Pacific coast of South America. It's one of the places middle class Limeños have adopted as the place to hang in summer, with second homes mushrooming.....

.... and nocturnal boulevards doing good business.


It's also the district where the woman in this picture.......

.....a certain Yary Valencia, has recently managed to buy 50 hectares of real estate for the princely sum of two US cents per square metre, which adds up at a touch over U$10,000 for land worth millions.

How did she do it? Nobody is exactly sure right now, but the 800 residents of the area bought up are crying merry hell. They made it on to Peruvian investigative reporter Nicolás Lucór's TV show last night calling scam, foul, rip-off and plenty of other names.

But who's the guy in that photo with Yary? Dudettes and dudes, may I present to you Yary's husband César Zumaeta, APRA member of congress in the National Government and one of the rising stars in President Twobreakfasts' political machine. Sheer coincidence that an APRA congressman would be mixed up in a scam rip-off land deal though, for sure.

Hat tip Mate Pastor

Oh Noes! Canada isn't the centre of the world!

• Maybe it's because people don't like the loonie

• Maybe it's because people are fed up to the back teeth with Da Boyz

• Maybe it's because people are sick to death of wanting in to a small miner and are offered 24 on the bid and 29 on the ask by corrupt pigs in suits and ties.

• Maybe it's because of the regulatory body, the OSC, that has managed to bring just two people to rights this decade (not joking, that's the number of convictions since 2000) and obviously doesn't give a damn about the impunity under their very noses.

But whatever it is, people are voting with their feet. The junior mining companies wise enough to spread their traded stock around other markets are now feeling the benefit of this move. Case in point is one of IKN's favoured microdots, Vena Resources (VEM.to), that traded just 1,000 shares in Toronto yesterday, but 63,000 in Frankfurt this morning and over 126,000 shares on the Lima, Peru BVL exchange yesterday (with closing bell bid at 21 and the ask at 22...that's how you run an investor-friendly exchange). Another one is Candente Resources (DNT.to), doing nearly half a million shares in volume in Lima yesterday. Plenty more examples to choose from, too.

Wouldn't it be funny if one day they rang the bell on the TSE and nobody came to play?

Peru knows what the world wants: A Birdshit Museum

A good excuse for a bit of classic Gary Larson

According to Peru's 'El Comercio' today, the Lima regional government is planning to build a museum in the Isla don Martín/Veguera part of the region to celebrate the role of guano in the development of the country.

The Isla Don Martín is very pretty at sundown

Here are a few fun factoids on guano, as collected from Google by IKN in the last 20 minutes:

• Guano is originally a Quechua word coined by the Incas. It means quite literally 'the droppings of sea birds'.

• It's birdshit

• Experts recognize Peruvian guano as the best in the world, as the offshore islands where it has accumulated over the millenia are protected from rain, heat and high humidity by the Humboldt current. This means Peruvian guano has kept a very high level of its original nitrate content over the centuries.

• It's still birdshit.

• Although prized by the Inca for the same fertilizing purposes, the heyday of Peru guano was between 1840 and 1880 when 22 million tonnes of the stuff was excavated and sold.

• That's a lot of birdshit.

• There was a war fought over the guano-rich islands in the 1860s when Spain tried to flex its naval muscles.

• Death by birdshit
  

• At the turn of the 20th century artificial fertilizers were being created. By 1910 Peru's guano trade had shrunk by around 90% to just 48,000 tonnes per year.

• Birdshit recession.

Illustration of 19th C. guano workings in Peru

Today's project announcement to create the birdshit...sorry...the Guano Museum was attended by all the necessary local bigwigs. The plan is to (and I quote) "appreciate the historic, milenary and contemporary value of guano to the national economy with the use of science and technology in its extraction."

One of the bigwigs was quoted in El Comercio as saying, "This is a great opportunity to complement the desired development of tourism in Vegueta, a district that has everything needed to develop a productive and touristic zone." And that's because it has a lot of birdshit.

Ok, I'm being a teensy weensy bit flippant here, because there's a lot of interesting history behind this story. Try clicking on this link for a short history of Peru's guano trade (it's in English) and you'll find it interesting enough I'm sure (I did). But whichever way you cut it, I don't think the Guggenheim is going to worry too much about its 2009 customer base being drawn away by Lima's birdshit museum. Cos that's what it is. Birdshit.

APEC moments you may have missed

Some Peruvian bizdude named Ricardo Rizo drew the short straw and was picked to introduce Bush and his speech to the APEC business forum yesterday. Our hero Dubya thought his intro would last a couple of lines and so after a few seconds bounded up on stage. But Rizo was determined to have his moment in the sun and while Bush stood onstage in the corner crossing and uncrossing his arms, shuffling feet and furrowing brow impatiently, Rizo warbled on though his full five minute uber-bootlicking intro. When it was finally over, Dubya took the mike, gave the fool a hard stare and mumbled "Gracias señor."

While the heads of state pow-wowed over the "Lima Declaration" (a twelve point statement that says precisely nothing new) this morning, their husbands and wives were taken on a city tour of Lima. Here are some of the views that the bus sadly missed.

Strange that, innit? I mean, these views are typical in 95% of the city. How could they have missed all that?

The best moment of comic relief was provided by President Twobreakfasts (who else?) on Wednesday. At a luncheon speech to officially welcome the President of China, Alan decided to give his welcome speech in Mandarin Chinese. Although President Hu Jintao kept his face all solemn and dignified, the smirks and giggles coming from the Chinese entourage behind the two Prezzes caught everyone's eye. It turns out that nobody....and I mean nobody...could understand a blind word of what Alan said (make that 'try to say') in Chinese. He was later praised for his "valiant effort".

The food was obviously crap. Over 100 cases of upset stomachs have been registered so far among the 8,000 foreign delegates attending APEC. An official government press release attributes the attack of Atahualpa's Revenge on (and I quote, because this is again from the "can't make this shit up" files): "The weather in Lima is characterized at this time of year by midday heat, but cool breeezes in the mornings and afternoons. Because of this, some of the typical dishes that have fresh vegetables and fish as ingredients, such as cebiche, may cause upset stomachs more easily and provoke discomfort amongst unprepared diners."

To add insult to injury in the stomach issue, reporters were forced to use a line of hastily assembled portaloos lined up at the side of the main conference hall. The smell after 48 hours was "interestingly profound", according to one photographer that e-mailed Otto. Well, that's my general translation of what he wrote in Spanish, anyway.

Welcome Hu Jintao!

By the way Peru's media are acting you would think that Chinese President Hu Jintao had flown in to Peru direct from Beijing...or the moon or something. Not a mention about the fact that he was hanging in Costa Rica and then Cuba (and got to meet a real celebrity on the island, too).

But Hu is in da house, and Twobreakfasts did his best to hide the worst corners of the capital on the drive round (they did a bit of open top waving when they got to the Plaza Mayor....the few proles let through the epic security cordon must have enjoyed that). However Alan let the side down badly in the end, as Otto "wannabe Perez Hilton" Rock explains.

BUY THE FAT DUDE A BELT, SOMEBODY. NOBODY WANTS TO SEE THAT SKIN ANY MORE.

I love hi-res photos.

APEC Peru Summit 2008: What you need to know if visiting Latin America's worst capital city

(click to enlarge...it's a high resolution shot and gets real big)

This is my fave shot of Lima because it's the best representation possible. It really is like this in 95% of the city (you won't be surprised to find out that dignitaries will only get to see 5% of the city). Drab town, drab weather, drab people*.

So anyway, there are 21 countries turning up to this APEC summit thingy, Peru is all very proud, there are 60,000 police and soldiers on the streets of Lima, the capital city has been given three days' official public holiday to make sure there isn't a whole bunch of proles around to ruin the whole thing. Hmmm...what else? Oh yeah, journalists are already bored with the whole thing, the "Aren't I So Radical To Be A Gringo And Live In Lima?" blogs are writing up on their fave restaurants, maybe trying to snag a diplo celeb on camera this weekend or get an autograph or something. These people rarely leave the comfort of Miraflores, San Isidro or Surco...beats me why they think themselves experts on the city. Whatevs.....

Nicest story so far is the guy who was arrested trying to get to the city centre carrying 36 hand grenades (I kid you not, dear reader). Also, this might be the time to remember how Sendero recently got its hands on a whole stack of dynamite when they robbed a mining outpost.

APEC is one of those meetings where much is expected but nothing ever seems to happen. In fact, it's the perfect conference for a place like Lima.

*"drab people" is the only thing that may be harsh, here. Good OttoFriends live in Lima. But the city gets anyone down after a while.

The Peru Inflation update

October in Peru came in at 0.61% CPI....

.....which means the Central Bank's "readjusted forecast" (i.e. we really screwed up by saying 1% to 3%, so we 're going again with 5.6% to 5.7%) is already being left behind by inflation that just won't stop. This time the INEI is blaming the electricity and water price increases. If that sounds familiar to the regular IKN readers, that's because your prescient Otto said it was going to feed inflation into the system way back in August.

So YoY figures for Lima + Metro is 5.94% (and as Jurgen Schuldt smartly pointed out in this chart, the vast majority of Peru has worse figures than that). It's shaping up to get over 6.5% by the end of the year, and with food price inflation now at over 10% it's the poor sector of Peru that will end up suffering the most. The more that things change, eh...........

Good News: Lima's potential environmental disaster is getting airtime

This report from Reuters hit the wires last night and I'm happy to report the potential disaster due to government inertia is getting more airtime. The report included this from Environment Minister Antonio Brack-Egg:

" Brack said the mines and energy ministry is preparing another emergency measure to finance the clean-up of a potential slide in the area."

This is good for Peru, good for the Lima water supply and good for Gold Hawk Resources, too. I can also report that CGK.v has contracted a highly respected local forestry firm, "Foresta S.A.", to get expert advice on what else they can do to move the process along as quickly as possible.

I know it's very easy to lay the blame at the door of the mining company in cases such as these, but it has to be said that Gold Hawk has done everything in its power to alleviate a problem they inherited more than created. A good example from "a tiny metals company" (to quote Reuters) that would be great to see followed by miners many times their size. Kudos to CGK.v.

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In Peru bureaucracy is annoying, but it can also be very dangerous