Eleven years ago, he was an army colonel plotting to overthrow the president of his country. Today, Ollanta Humala is the president-elect of Peru, and just days ago he visited President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Washington. In Peru’s 2006 presidential election, which he lost, Humala closely identified with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. This time, his model was Brazil’s former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who sent advisers to Peru to help with the campaign. The Washington Post’s Lally Weymouth spoke with Humala in Washington on Wednesday. Excerpts:
You just met with top U.S. officials today in Washington. What did you accomplish?
Today we met with Secretary of State Clinton, President Obama and his national security adviser, Tom Donilon. . . .
[We agreed on the importance of] respecting the environment, fighting drug trafficking, the importance of education and technology for transforming a country. It was a cheerful conversation in which we agreed that the best period for a president of a country is the electoral campaign.
A lot of businessmen were apprehensive about your election because of your previous economic plan, which advocated state intervention. Now I understand you have a different economic plan, which is more friendly to business. Why should businessmen believe you are friendly to business?
First, Peru has changed. It is no longer the Peru of 2005. It is the Peru of 2011, and it is different from when I campaigned in 2005. Obviously, we politicians have to adapt to these changes.
In other words, you have to be more friendly toward business?
In 2005, we didn’t have free-trade agreements. Now we have more than 15 free-trade agreements. In 2005, many [foreign] businesses that are now operating in the country had not signed agreements. What hasn’t changed is that economic growth in the country continues to create more inequality. The problem in Peru is not so much poverty — it is inequality. The essence of the discourse in 2005 and 2006 is the same one that we have maintained in 2010 and 2011. My macroeconomic policy is to strengthen and ensure economic growth, but with social inclusion.
Last year there was a growth rate of nearly 9 percent in your country. This year it is estimated to be between 6 and 7 percent. How do you make the policies more inclusive without killing the growth rate?
National elections have shown the model as it was being applied by the [current] government was not approved of by the population. That’s why the Peruvian population has punished the current government by reducing its participation in the next government to four parliamentarians out of 130. The Peruvian population has put its trust in the proposal by my party, Gana Peru, the nationalist party, on the subject of inclusion through public policies. For example, we have a school dropout rate between 20 to 25 percent. We are creating social programs so that families commit themselves to taking their children to school.
Like President Lula’s program, Bolsa Familia, which has lifted so many out of poverty and into the middle class?
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