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Weekly Report - 17 February 2011 (WR-11-07)

PERU: Can poverty provide silver lining?

President Alan García is preparing for elections - in 2016. With less than two months to go until elections on 10 April, and with polls indicating that the ruling Partido Aprista Peruano (PAP) can expect a pummelling in the congressional elections after pulling its candidate from the presidential contest, García is seeking a legacy before he leaves office in July, to give himself a chance of re-election in 2016. His flagship five-year plan for cutting arms spending in the region and devoting the savings to eradicating poverty has won some plaudits, including from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon who visited this week, but it remains an abstract aspiration. So García is latching on to poverty. He wants to introduce a “poverty royalty" to ensure an enduring legacy beyond the bald figures of having reduced poverty by 14 percentage points since he came to power in 2006.

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