Peru's ex-president Alan Garcia, at the close of his election campaign, accused Venezuela's Hugo Chavez of financing his rival's electoral campaign in a bid to draw the country into his sphere of influence.
"Peru would be a colony of Venezuela; that's the objective of the Chavez money," Garcia said ahead of tomorrow's presidential election, where he will face off with cashiered officer Ollanta Humala.
He claimed Humala's campaign "has been penetrated and dominated by the oil money of Mr Hugo Chavez."
Chavez has urged Ven-ezuelans to vote for Humala, and has hurled insults at Garcia, who responded in kind.
Humala, a political newcomer who dominated the first round of voting in April but now trails the ex-president in opinion polls, angrily dismissed the claim as just another dirty trick by the Garcia camp.
He insisted he didn't need "patronage from anybody" and said he rejected any outside interference.
The two candidates on Thursday night concluded their campaigns, marked by weeks of mudslinging, with Garcia addressing supporters in Lima, and Humala holding his final rally in Cuzco, the historic capital of the Inca empire.
Several opinion polls conducted ahead of the election put Garcia in the lead, with at least 10 points over Humala, but a simulation vote by respected pollsters Apoyo had the former president leading his rival by only four points.
Both presidential hopefuls pledged to tackle pressing social issues in Peru, where about half the 27 million population live in poverty.
Garcia, whose 1985-1990 government was marked by economic collapse and corruption, promised "bread and freedom," credits for small companies, more jobs and less poverty.
The ex-president says he has learned from his past mistakes, and that he would maintain policies that brought economic growth in recent years but would focus more on social issues.
Humala seeks far more dramatic changes, including a redistribution of wealth and increased state controls in the key mining sector.
"It is possible to create a new Peru ... we need to build a new country for the poorest of Peruvians," he told supporters in Cuzco.
The hopefuls again traded bitter attacks, with Garcia claiming his rival represented "hate and violence," and Humala warning of "false prophets who have governed this country."
While Humala portrays his rival as a pawn of Washington, Garcia claims the former officer is being manipulated by Chavez.
Some analysts believe the outspoken interventions by Chavez may have been more helpful to Garcia than to Humala, and opinion polls show a great majority of Peruvians object to what they see as meddling in their affairs.
Evidently worried about a potential fallout, the Humala campaign asked Chavez to keep his views of the Peruvian election to himself, but waited until the last days of the campaign to do so.
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