The former mayor of the province of Andahuaylas and former congressman for Apurímac, Edgar Villanueva assured that the Ahora Nación candidate, Alfonso López Chau, served time in the Lurigancho prison, and that, although he does not know what crime he was imprisoned for, he indicated that the former rector of the University of Engineering must explain it.
The former parliamentarian, a member of that political group, revealed that a few weeks ago, after learning of the article that López Chau published in 1989 in a left-wing newspaper where he described the terrorist Víctor Polay Campos, leader of the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) as a social fighter, he suggested to the current presidential candidate that he “clarify his past situation” and “talk about his prison in Lurigancho.”
“I had to clarify the reasons and it seems that this bothered him a lot,” Villanueva told RPP, pointing out that López Chau would have been in two prisons for several months during the military regime of Juan Velasco Alvarado.
“He presents himself as a social Christian, as a Catholic and a social democrat and suddenly he doesn’t want to see that past. I believe, as a politician, that we must say what has happened to clarify,” said the former mayor.
WHAT DOES YOUR PARTY SAY?
From Ahora Nación they recalled that their candidate never hid this information and that, in 1989, he even commented in a newspaper that he was imprisoned for three months for being ‘unruly’, when he was 20 years old and recognized himself as a follower of APRA leader Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, although he left prison after being favored by an amnesty granted by General Velasco.
The group points out that López Chau requested an amnesty certificate from the Judiciary, and the judicial entity responded that it does not record a consented and executed conviction, which is why – indicates Ahora Nación -, not having a criminal or judicial record, he was able to exercise the rectorship of the UNI without problems, in addition to being director of the Central Reserve Bank (BCR) and being a professor at CAEM, among other positions.
THE PRAISE
In the publication that López Chau wrote in the now-defunct Cambio, the current presidential candidate remembers his relationship with Víctor Polay, whom he described as a “social fighter.” At that time, this movement had already claimed responsibility for several terrorist attacks in the capital.
López Chau recognizes his friendship with the then active militant of this movement, whom he met when they met as members of the Peruvian Aprista Youth (JAP).
He points out that he did not agree with their ideas and that everyone then followed their own path. He also says that he met Polay again in a restaurant while he was already a member of the MRTA.
“I think he is a man whose program I do not totally share, but I think he is not only a social fighter, but a political fighter,” the candidate wrote in part of his article.
In July 1990, and already being imprisoned for terrorism, Polay was involved in an escape from the Canto Grande prison along with 47 other emerretistas. Months later he was recaptured.
This controversial article was recalled last December in a publication on social network X by former GEIN head José Luis Gil in which he included a clipping of that column. Also through X’s personal account, López Chau responded: “My condemnation of terrorism has been and is absolute. The MRTA never believed in the construction of the Nation and never believed in our proposal to give all power to the regions to conquer the world’s markets.”
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