High-profile political consultant Luis Favre has resigned from Cesar Acuña’s presidential campaign in 2016 elections.
One of Latin America’s most prominent political consultants has abandoned Acuña in the latest sign of chaos in the campaign and a possible exit from the race to become Peru’s president.
A source in Acuña’s Alliance for Progress party told El Comercio that Favre said the candidate turned out to be a “box of surprises” in referring to multiple scandals including piracy, plagiarism, domestic violence and more. Others added that he quit because the candidate was not implementing Favre’s recommendations.
“His exit does not hurt us,” Richard Acuña, La Libertad congressman and brother of Cesar Acuña, told El Comercio in trying to downplay the news. “Not at all, it has nothing to do with it. We just talked and agreed that consulting should only last until the end of February.”
In a television interview this month, Acuña said that the $480,000 he paid Favre was a waste. The Argentine strategist whose real name is Felipe Wermus led the successful campaigns of President Ollanta Humala, Brazil’s presidents Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff as well as former Lima mayor Susana Villaran to defeat a 2013 recall vote.
Acuña replaced Favre with Spanish political scientist Ismael Crespo.
Favre’s departure from the former Trujillo mayor’s bid for the Government Palace comes less than one week after evangelical leader Humberto Lay withdrew from the ticket. Meanwhile, ethical and criminal scandals continue to mount up for Acuña, who faces possible disqualification from the ballot for perjury, plagiarism and vote-buying.
In addition to two university rectors disowning signatures on a document Acuña showed as evidence of co-authorship in his piracy controversy, last night television program Cuarto Poder discovered a similar case of piracy in which Acuña’s university publishing arm sold a municipal management textbook under the authorship of his brother, a congressman from Lambayeque.
Virgilio Acuña admitted he did not contribute anything to the book, but he blamed the decision to cite himself as the author on a “team leader.”
Acuña rose to a statistical tie for second place with Pedro Pablo Kuczynski in voter surveys last December, but wave of scandals have eroded over half of his support to just 6%.
Sources
Luis Favre abandona la campaña de César Acuña (El Comercio)
Luis Favre: ¿por qué se alejó de la campaña de César Acuña? (El Comercio)
Partido de Acuña anuncia nuevo asesor tras salida de Luis Favre (El Comercio)
Virgilio Acuña también habría copiado tesis en su libro (America TV)