Peru’s no-convictions politician

OLLANTA HUMALA is Latin America’s political weather vane. A former army officer, in 2006 he ran for Peru’s presidency (and lost) as a sympathiser of Hugo Chávez, his campaign financed in part by Venezuelan money. In 2011 he ran again, this time as a disciple of Brazil’s left-leaning but pragmatic former president, known as Lula, calling for “a great transformation”. To win a run-off election that year he moved further to the centre, promising to maintain the liberal economic policies that helped to give Peru the fastest growth rate of South America’s larger economies over the previous decade.