Lourdes Flores, Peru’s most prominent woman politician, is widely thought of as honest and hard-working. A lawyer and former congresswoman for the right-of-centre Popular Christian party, she was edged out of the second round run-off in 2001. Her market-friendly policies have won her support among the local and international business communities. Although she has travelled widely and campaigned relentlessly, she has failed to make real contact with Peru’s poor. Critics say she lacks political street sense and the common touch. From having led the polls weeks ago, she is now fighting to make it into the second round.

In 1985 Alan García became the youngest president in the history of the republic, taking office aged 36. Charismatic and a fiery orator, he was dubbed ‘Latin America’s Kennedy’. García won continent-wide acclaim for his aggressive challenge to the power of foreign banks and restricted debt payments. The result was a deep recession and when he left office in 1990 inflation was more than 7,000 per cent and Maoist Shining Path guerrillas were threatening to take over the state. He has since tried to reinvent himself as a market-friendly social democrat. In 2001 he lost narrowly to Alejandro Toledo, the current president.