Los Angeles Workers' Center Blog

Peru
New Peruvian president: Peru’s poor my priority
Frank Bajak, AP, July 28, 2011
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gxpNSDaJPzWQxs2qnFZI8taia84A

Lima, Peru – Ollanta Humala, the leftist military man who won Peru’s presidency after abandoning a radical platform, promised in his inaugural address Thursday to make his priority the one in three Peruvians still mired in poverty.

In an impassioned speech, the 49-year-old former army lieutenant colonel charted a plan for spreading the wealth from Peru’s mineral boom beyond Lima, where it has long been concentrated among a small elite, to long-neglected hinterlands.

“Peru’s peasants and the poor in the countryside in general will be the priority,” Humala said in remarks before a newly installed Congress and dignitaries who included 11 presidents, almost all from South America.
[...]
The pledges include guaranteeing old-age pensions for all Peruvians at age 65; raising the minimum monthly wage to $270 by next year; and building hospitals in 50 cities where they’re lacking.

The president also has promised to invest more in public transportation in the traffic-choked capital of Lima; to expand highways and railways; to rebuild Peru’s merchant marine, and to re-establish a national airline. Aeroperu went bankrupt in 1999.

He also said he would dedicate more natural gas from the Camisea field for domestic use rather than export, and has promised to lower natural gas prices, although he wouldn’t offer a target price Thursday.

Humala won’t have an easy time in Congress, where his party has just 47 of 130 seats and will have to depend on lawmakers from the Peru Posible party of former President Alejandro Toledo for a majority.
[...]
The World Bank says that in Peru’s rural highlands, where support for Humala was strongest, the poverty rate is as high as 66 percent. Humala won more than 70 percent of the vote in several highland states in the June 5 election.

(from Just Foregin Policy)

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