Peruvian president Ollanta Humala admitted on Tuesday that his 2005 presidential campaign received financial support from Venezuela, but he denied that the funds came from the regime in Caracas. Humala was reacting to published reports that the Venezuelan company, Kaysamak C.A.—which contributed nearly $80,000 to the Humala campaign through his wife, Nadine Heredia—has ties to Venezuela’s National Assembly president, Diosdado Cabello. These published reports regarding illicit campaign funds are just the latest linking Peru’s first lady to alleged money laundering and other corruption.
In 2011, during the presidential campaign, then-candidate Ollanta Humala flatly denied having received money from Venezuela to support his campaign, calling the allegations made by opposition candidates a “hoax.”
Humala was forced to change his story after various media outlets reported that a Venezuelan company managed by an alleged front man of Cabello deposited funds into the personal account of the president’s mother-in-law.
The recent published reports also cite 26 phone calls made by Humala’s wife to the Venezuelan presidential palace in 2005, while her husband was campaigning for the presidency. Likewise, sources have confirmed that she traveled to Venezuela a day after her last call to the Venezuelan government. So far, the purpose of this trip remains unknown.
Humala has called the charges against his wife “malicious” and “exaggerated.” (sic) He said that Venezuelan support for his campaign was “collaboration of Venezuelan businessmen and other countries, but there is nothing illegal.”
Strikes by miners and corruption allegations against former aides of the president and against his wife have damaged Humala’s popularity. According to GFK polling, the president’s approval rating stands at 16%, the lowest since he took office nearly four years ago.
Because of his campaign rhetoric, military background, and alleged ties to the late Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez, many predicted that Humala would adopt radical policies that would disrupt the robust growth and relative stability that Peru has experienced in the last decade. Although Humala exceeded expectations by not imposing radical changes, Peru’s growth has slowed considerably, down from 8.5% in 2010 to 2.4% last year.
The Peru scandal is just the latest sign that ties to the regime in Venezuela—which has been linked to narcotrafficking and other corruption in recent months—have become toxic in Latin America. From El Salvador to Argentina to Brazil, financial ties to Venezuela have become a political liability, eliciting calls for transparency by the independent media and domestic opposition.
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