LIMA, (Reuters) – Peru’s presidential election race has been rattled by allegations that cash from the drugs trade has made its way into campaigns and that traffickers are extending their political influence.
President Alan Garcia, two leading presidential candidates and senior members of a third candidate’s party have all been linked by police or local media reports to suspected drug traffickers or coca growers.
In two of the cases, front-running candidate Alejandro Toledo and left-wing rival Ollanta Humala have denied any direct ties to traffickers or coca growers, and dismissed the reports as tenuous.
But President Alan Garcia, who cannot run for re-election in the April 10 vote, said he unwittingly accepted cash for his last campaign from people named in police investigations, and presidential hopeful Keiko Fujimori said she once took campaign money from people she says were framed on drug charges.
The United Nations says Peru is the world’s top producer of coca, used to make cocaine, and although none of the presidential candidates is accused of working for traffickers or knowingly taking their money, the funding allegations that have emerged in recent weeks have caused a public outcry.
They seem to confirm what policy makers and diplomats have long feared: that traffickers or planters, who for years helped mayors win elections in rural coca-growing towns, would start trying to sway politics at the highest levels.
“I think there’s no longer any doubt that drug trafficking has penetrated politics, and not just in the VRAE and Huallaga,” Fernando Rospigliosi, a former interior minister, said in reference to Peru’s main coca-growing valleys.
The controversy reflects a sense that Peru could take one of two paths: one glorious, the other macabre.
After a decade of rapid economic growth, optimists say Peru could go on to lift millions out of poverty and emulate the example of neighboring Chile, one of Latin America’s most successful and stable countries.
But if it doesn’t do more to rein in the drugs trade, Peru could be overrun by Mexican cartels or see a surge in violence like that which destabilized Colombia in the 1980s and is hurting Mexico now.
The reality is somewhere in between. Peru is unlikely to become as violent as Mexico or Colombia because its drugs trade is run by bosses who live abroad, meaning there is less room for turf battles to spin out of control.
Still, risks of unfettered corruption remain.
“I think it’s possible that drug trafficking will continue to advance, mostly by breaking down institutions and politicians charged with combating it,” Rospigliosi said. “We could get to a very critical situation.”
The United States, according to at least three diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks, is also concerned that drug traffickers in Peru could undermine the rule of law by buying protection from politicians, police, judges and army officers.
