Countdown for APRA

The hawk-nosed little man raised his arms, as if in benediction, and 1,000 Peruvian Indians at the airport in the remote jungle town of Iquitos responded with a thunderclap cheer: "Haya presidente! APRA never dies!" The visitor beamed, waved, headed a parade over a red dirt road into town, and there delivered a fiery, fist-shaking speech in a plaza ringed by royal palms and mango trees. "Five centuries ago millions of Incas lived well in Peru," he cried. "There is no reason we cannot do better today!" "APRA, APRA!" screamed the crowd.

The man was Victor Raul Haya de la Torre, founder of Peru's peasant-and-worker APRA Party--and he was on the last lap of a long journey. After three decades of jail, exile and bitter fighting, Haya was at last a candidate, running openly and legally, for President of Peru. As the June 10 election date drew near, he was the favorite, but a narrow one and a man whose many enemies were closing in around him. Pressing hard are Fernando Belaunde, 49, who narrowly lost the 1956 election, and a voice from the more distant past, ex-Dictator Manuel Odria, 64, who ruled from 1948 to 1956 and now seeks a popular mandate. On the election outcome hangs not only the future of Haya and his APRA, but the course that Peru will take--a country of 11 million stretching for 1,400 miles down South America's Pacific coast, and plagued by all the ills that keep Latin America in explosive ferment.

Massacre in Chan Chan. Haya's enemies have good reason to fear him and his party. His allies are still nervously unsure in their trust. Son of a struggling newspaper publisher, Haya founded APRA (American Popular Revolutionary Alliance) 38 years ago while exiled in Mexico for inciting student riots against Peru's ruling oligarchy. His object was to unite all Latin America into a single federation under a government built around elements of both Marxism and Fascism. Imperialists and exploiters would be thrown out; the peasants would rule through the divine leadership of APRA. The party's flag was red, its organization split into Communist-type cells, its salute a Nazi straight-arm. Returning home to campaign for President in 1951, Haya so fired the Indian peasantry that Peru's alarmed aristocracy canceled returns wholesale and turned the presidency over to an army colonel.

The party was outlawed, and APRA responded by massacring 26 soldiers in Haya's home town of Trujillo. Coldly and efficiently, the army then executed thousands of Apristas before the ruins of the nearby Inca city of Chan Chan. Driven underground, Haya continued to build his party cells and by 1945 was too powerful either to destroy or ignore. In elections that year, APRA made a deal to help elect a non-Aprista as President, and in return was given three Cabinet posts. Within three years, an APRA-hating general named Manuel Odria seized power and drove APRA underground once more. Haya fled to the Colombian embassy in Lima, where he stayed for five years. Not until 1956 did Odria hold another election. Once again APRA was the power behind the scenes, helped elect Manuel Prado, a conservative banker, to the presidency in return for winning legality as a party. It also made an enemy of Fernando Belaunde, a well-born architect who at 43 went into politics in a big way and cultivated wide support from both left and right with a spellbinding appeal to Peruvian nationalism. He lost to Prado by only 106,000 votes and blamed his defeat on APRA.

Blessed & Cursed. In the current campaign, Haya and APRA are working hard to live down their violent past. Declaring himself a member of the non-Communist left, Haya renounces Communism in his speeches, tells his Apristas that democratic reform, foreign investment and massive U.S. aid are the only cures for Peru's ills--an illiteracy rate of possibly 60%, a life expectancy of 45 years, an average peasant wage of $53 annually. Yet the conservatives still call APRA Communist, the Communists call it reactionary, and politicians of all shades spend more time attacking it than speaking for themselves. Nor does APRA hear many kind words from outgoing President Prado and his influential ex-Prime Minister, Pedro Beltran, both of whom enjoyed APRA's support in government. Both have declined to give APRA an endorsement.

Through its well-organized political machine, APRA controls the country's 500,000-member Workers' Confederation and the 1,300,000-member Peasants' Federation. Haya predicts that he will win with more than 1,000,000 votes out of an expected 2,000,000. But Fernando Belaunde, the 1956 loser, is giving APRA a hard race. Tirelessly stumping Peru's 144 provinces, he preaches much the same economic and social reform as does APRA, draws huge crowds from all those who hate and fear APRA. His opinions about the rabid left hardened abruptly a fortnight ago when he got beaned by a Castroite rock and angrily disavowed "all forms of leftism." His supporters argue that in a sorely divided nation he would have the easiest road to travel as President, since he is the most acceptable to all factions. Nor can the third candidate be written off. Ex-Dictator Odria, now 64, has the backing of the military, some businessmen and, oddly, many Communists. He, too, talks reform and spends wads of soles (3 1/4-c- each) enrolling massive support in Lima, where he is remembered for some showcase public works.

The balance is delicate, and any last-minute deal among supporters of the three contenders might well determine the outcome on election day. If APRA and Haya de la Torre should win, they face the possibility that Peru's military men, emboldened by the Argentine example, will attempt to annul the election. Odria already accuses APRA of trying to rig the voting. "If the government allows fraud, there will be deeds not words," shouted Odria at a rally in Lima. And last week the army, which is charged with supervising the election, reported the discovery of 1,591 falsified voting cards. It did not accuse APRA--but the party remembers the statement by one general two months ago: "Even if Haya de la Torre is elected, he will never sit in the presidential palace."

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