Peruvian voters have thankfully taken a step back from the abyss with the election of moderately left-leaning Alan Garcia to the presidency over radical Hugo Chavez-groupie and former comandante Ollanta Humala. In a run-off election between the two candidates held on June 4, Garcia secured only about 53 percent of the vote, winning the capital, Lima, but failing to win over mining regions such as Huancavelica and Junin, and tourism centres Cusco and Arequipa. Garcia's victory is, in part, a rejection of the intrusion of Chavez, Venezuela's hot-headed president, into Peru's domestic politics. Chavez drew the ire of many Peruvians through his overt backing of Humala as a way to export his reckless "Bolivarian revolution" to Peru.
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