AN ARM OR A LEG

Pity poor Peruvians. In their presidential election on Sunday they went to the polls to elect a replacement for the hapless Alejandro Toledo. There was a simple choice: a) a racist, populist nationalist whose brother killed several policemen last August; b) a silver-tongued ex-president whose rule caused a civil war, 7,000% inflation and human-rights abuses galore; or c) a chubby, characterless conservative whose father made racist, anti-Toledo jibes at the last election.

As I write this, the votes are still being counted. What's clear, though, is that candidate a) - Ollanta Humala - has won round one. Perhaps more worrying, though, is that his run-off opponent next month looks like being Mr b), Alan Garcia. "It's like choosing between having your arm cut off or your leg," a Peruvian journalist friend of mine told me earlier today.

I fear she may be right. Ollanta is untested. He'll be like an oil-less Chavez - he'll have less largesse to spread around, but he won't think twice about ruffling the business community's feathers or spending all of Peru's mining revenues freely.

As for Alan, arguably the most-gifted speaker in South America (and having seen him in action, I can testify that he is a serious charmer), he argues that he's changed his ways. He's learnt from his disastrous presidency in the 1980s, he says. But does that mean he deserves a second chance? A Limeno cabbie once put it like this: "If an architect puts up a building which then collapses, he gets thrown in jail. So if a president causes the collapse of a country shouldn't he also be punished?"

Alas, Peruvians - much as I love them, their country, their food, their chicha (and chucha) and their beer - like to be different. They seem to relish a bit of farce in their politics. It makes great copy for journalists. But it doesn't do much to improve Peruvians' lot.
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Now that I'm down from my soap-box, I can get back to ranting about girls, work and life in general. But not until tomorrow, or after Passover.