Reactionaries lose money

So I get this mail today from some dude worried that "The Communists are going to win in Peru" this Sunday. By this he was referring to the rise of Susana Villarán in the election for the Mayor of Lima, now firm favourite to get the job after polls show her with a lead of up to 12 points (40 to 28 vs main rival Lourdes Flores).

It made me reflect on just how ignorant people are. Villarán is no communist, she hates the Chávez regime, she's one of the few that stood up to the totalitarianism of Fujimori in the 1990's and was a minister in the highly successful transition government of Valentin Paniagua in the early part of this decade when Fujimori fell from grace. But because some media channel or other has decided that Lourdes Flores (centre right) is their gal, Villarán (centre left and not an inch further left than that) gets lumped in with the goddam pinko commies to scare the crap out of people who just can't be bothered to look beyond the headlines. The person who mailed me wanted to know whether selling Fortuna Silver (FVI.to) was the right thing to do cos of this new and evil Commie threat! No matter that FVI operates over a thousand Kms from Lima, no matter that the price of silver is far more influence than local politics, no matter that Villarán has declared herself and her party 100% pro-business....better to swallow the bullshit spin and hype, isn't it? It's no wonder the  ignorant and uninformed lose so much money in the markets every year.

And then this Guardian article below hit my screen. Not Peru but Brazil (and with today's best photo included), the connection was still clear enough. Read it yourself and see what I mean, because it also applied when the investment community got scared of 'Chelle Bachelet in Chile a few years ago and said her Commie background would ruin everything. Right wingers really like reminding us all how freakin' dumb they are, don't they? 

For years "Lula" was a dirty word at Brazil's main stock exchange, the Bovespa in São Paulo. The mere mention of the fact that Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, former union-leader and once a ferocious anti-capitalist, had his eyes on the presidency was enough to send shivers through international markets. In the lead up to Lula's historic 2002 election, Brazil's currency plummeted as overseas investors fretted over what the country's first working-class president might do to their balance sheets.

Times have changed – and Lula knows it. "Ten years ago I'd walk past the [stock exchange's] front door and people would shake with fear. They'd say, 'Where is that capitalist-eater going?" Lula joked last Friday, as he returned to the Bovespa to unveil the largest share offer in world history: the sale of $70bn (£45bn) worth of shares in the Brazilian energy group Petrobras. CONTINUES HERE

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.

Manuel Rosales decides on Peru for his vacation this year

Brave Sir Robin ran away
Bravely ran away, away
When danger reared its ugly head
He bravely turned his tail and fled
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat
Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin

The Ballad of Sir Robin, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975

As noted by Bina last week and confirmed today, the Mayor of Maracaibo Manuel Rosales has done a brave Sir Robin and ran away to Peru to escape the court case he faces in Venezuela. The charge is that he evaded $66,000 worth of taxes which might not sound that much, but it's very much the example charge for a guy that has been suspected as a classic corrupt LatAm politico for decades.

But of course it's all being politicized as Rosales is one of the main opposition figures to Chávez in Venezuela and there's little doubt that Hugo would love to see Rosales thrown in the slammer. So is it a straight case of weeding out corruption or a political witchunt? Probably both, methinks.

However, your humble correspondent loses 100% of any respect he might have had for Rosales' case now that he's confirmed as having bolted the country. If you want to play the "I'm a political prisoner" card you gotta be a prisoner first, and jailtime for your ideology is one of the calling cards round here. They all do it, y'know. Lula, Michelle, Evo, Hugo...the list goes on and on. So if you want to make a point, Manuel, do some time. But if you want to hang out in a 5 star hotel in Miraflores Lima for a while, be clear that you are a plain old lilly-livered yellow-bellied chickenshit coward.

UPDATE: Let's add Bina's comment below to the main section so that you can all see it easily. BTW, if anyone wants to write an equal&opposite rebuttal to Bina and defend the Rosales position I'll put it up in the same way, too.

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It's not just tax evasion; he's also suspected of huge embezzlement. He's failed to keep up local infrastructure, such as the Port of Maracaibo, for years, and no wonder. He made off with enough public money (some of it from the Zulia state lottery) to buy numerous large estates and put them in the names of various family members. And that's not even counting all that fancy real estate in Florida...But of course it's political--in a socialist country where there's a land reform law forbidding ownership of large, non-productive tracts of land (hey, campesinos gotta eat and grow local food, can't go on living in slums and depending on importation, y'know), this kind of thing is just pure politics. (We'll just ignore the fact that the Inter-American Human Rights Commission never received his claims of political persecution while we're at it. You'd think someone so rich and well-lawyered would at least be able to present a case, wouldn't you?)

BTW, did I mention he paid off the media with Cartier watches? No wonder that "witch-hunt" meme keeps cropping up. Where will they get their fancy bling from if he's forced to give back what he stole? Gotta earn those gold watches...

Like I keep saying: I can't respect the oppos if they don't clean up their corruptos.

The Queen of Argentine Politics isn't its President

Macri being all serious and politico

Mauricio Macri is Mayor of the city of Buenos Aires. In the patchwork quilt* that is Argentine politics he's regarded as a right-wing defender of the middle classes and his position is one of "love him or hate him" in the city and the wider country.

But along with all the baggage he brings (he's son of a rich magnate, he was president of futbol club Boca Jrs for a long time, he was kidnapped when young and held to ransom etc) he's also convinced himself along the way that he can sing, even taking professional lessons back in 2007 to top up his.....errr...ability.

And now we get to the crunch. At his recent 50th birthday party, Macri got up on stage to perform "Somebody To Love" by his favourite band, Queen. So sit back, relax and treat yourself to two minutes and forty seconds of the Mayor of one of the largest cities in the world and early frontrunner as the next President doing his very own Freddie Mercury impression.

*as mentioned previously, it's very difficult to use classic left-right labels in Argentina mainly due to its strange Peronist history. The definition above is a rough approximiation and no more.