Alan García’s victory over Ollanta Humala in Peru’s presidential elections left Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez seething. Peruvians rejected the populist Humala, who sought to distance himself from Chávez’s anti-American rhetoric despite having received the Venezuelan leader’s uninvited backing. Chávez threw insults at García, calling him “a thief, a demagogue, a liar”. García reiterated his support for democracy and free trade, shooting back a barb of his own: “The Chávez phenomenon is militarism with a lot of money.” It is a stunning metamorphosis for the former socialist president whose first term in the 1980s ended in hyperinflation and a terror campaign by Shining Path. Nevertheless, Lima’s financial community remains worried by García’s plans to renegotiate Peru’s free trade agreement with the US.