PERU’S PRESIDENT-ELECT is still more than one month away from starting his five-year term but Ollanta Humala’s political opponents are already working to ensure his charismatic wife will be unable to run to succeed him in 2016.
A member of the outgoing congress has tabled a measure to enshrine in the constitution an electoral law that prohibits close relatives from running to succeed a serving president.
Though Jorge del Castillo says his proposal “is not aimed at any one person, it is in defence of institutionalism”, it has quickly won the nickname the “anti-Nadine project” in reference to Mr Humala’s wife, Nadine Heredia.
The 35-year-old mother-of-three is widely regarded as her husband’s closest political adviser along with his campaign chief Salomón Lerner. The couple are cousins, and like her husband Ms Heredia was raised in a staunchly nationalist family that revered the country’s Inca past.
Both studied political science at Lima’s Pontifical Catholic University before going on to found the Peruvian Nationalist Party together.
A skilled political communicator in her own right, Ms Heredia boosted her already high profile with a central role in her husband’s successful presidential bid, appearing alongside him in posters and holding rallies of her own in a bid to boost his appeal among women voters.
She was also the centre of a political controversy when opponents claimed she was the conduit for secret funding from Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez to Mr Humala.
She admits she did work as a “social communicator” for a pro-Chávez newspaper in Venezuela but said the role was “apolitical”.
In a US cable released by WikiLeaks, the US ambassador to Peru referred to her as “reputedly the radical political brains behind Humala”.
Mr Humala’s opponents claim he wants to import Mr Chávez’s populist “Bolivarian revolution” to Peru. Mr Humala did express admiration for Mr Chávez in the past, but now says he wants to emulate the more moderate left-wing example of Brazil’s former president Lula.
During the presidential race Mr Humala publicly swore on the Bible that he would leave office when his single five-year term ends.
This was a bid to allay fears that he harboured authoritarian tendencies and would emulate Mr Chávez and alter the constitution to extend his time in office.
But this has only led opponents to warn that he could follow the example of former Argentinian president Nestor Kirchner, who used the presidency to ensure that his wife, Cristina, was elected to succeed him in 2007.
Peru’s former president Alejandro Toledo has backed the bar on relatives, saying last week: “We cannot let happen in Peru what happened in Argentina with the Kirchners.”
Despite such fears, neither Ms Heredia nor her president-elect husband have ever publicly discussed the possibility of her one day being their party’s presidential candidate.
Indeed it is Mr Toledo who refuses to rule out running again in 2016.
He ran this year but fell in the first round of voting, throwing his support behind Mr Humala in his run-off against Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of the dictator Mr Toledo helped to topple in 2000.
Also suspected of harbouring ambitions to run again in 2016 is outgoing president Alan García. He is the leader of the Apra party, whose deputies are behind the “anti-Nadine project” in congress.