Lopez Chauaccording to sources close to his party leadership, has a wide circle of trust and two levels. In the first are the members of the National Executive Committee (CEN) of the workers’ helmet group and an international advisor, who has experience in Peru and Mexico. In the other, of lower hierarchy, are the “jales” and guests for the candidacies for the bicameral Congress (see infographic).
Within the nucleus closest to the applicant is his son Luis Alfonso Lopez Chau Pastorsurgeon, who is president and legal representative of Ahora Nación. In addition, Nicoly Araujo Gambio, vice president and treasurer, and Néstor Villegas Alarcón, general secretary. Araujo graduated from UNI in 2024 and Villegas continues to be a student at the aforementioned university.
Circle of trust of Alfonso López Chau (El Comercio)
“When Ahora Nación was founded, the doctor Alfonso López Chau He was still rector. He introduces us to Luis Lopez Chauhis son. We established a very good relationship with him and when the party was founded, in a youth assembly we discussed and we saw that his father’s leadership was reflected in him and he was appointed as president of the group,” Brayan Valentín Delgado, founder and national secretary of Organization of the aforementioned party, told El Comercio.
Read also: José Balcázar: his approach to López Chau’s party and the story behind his expulsion
Valentín, also a candidate for deputy for Lima, said that he met the presidential candidate when he applied in 2020 for the rectorate of the UNI and he did the same for the University Council.
“The other members (of the CEN) were university leaders, teachers, who had some representation (in the UNI). We were members of the university community,” he remarked.
At the first level of the circle of trust of Lopez Chau There is also the economist José Marcelo Salazar, member of the CEN and head of the Ahora Nación government plan. The same sources reported that since he is running for the chamber of deputies in Áncash, former congressman Jaime Delgado (who is part of the second level of the nucleus) plays the role of spokesperson for the document in the forums held in Lima.
Among those who have the most experience in the political struggle and who is part of the environment of the former rector of the UNI is Carlo Magno Salcedo, advisor to the Presidency of the Republic during the transitional government of Francisco Sagasti (2020-2021). The lawyer ran for Parliament in the 2020 complementary elections and was an advisor to the Purple Party bench during that period.
Salcedo, currently, is the national secretary of Doctrine and Political Training and is spokesperson for the workers’ helmet party.
Furthermore, the Spanish Andorran has joined this first circle of trust. Jordi Segarra as the strategist and brain of the campaign Lopez Chauaccording to different sources. The communicator was an advisor to Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (PPK) in the second round of 2016, at the suggestion of businesswoman Susana de la Puente.
Segarra has also advised, in Mexico, politicians from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), National Action Party (PAN) and PANAL.
The consultant was also part of Barack Obama’s campaign team, when he first became president of the United States in 2008, and has said that he advised Joan Laporta in his first re-election as president of the Barcelona Football Club, in Spain. That is to say, their fees are not less.
Other sources from the group have reported that Segarra, who entered Peru at the end of January, as reported by the “Contracorriente” program, has begun to accompany Lopez Chau on his trips to the interior of the country, although he has been careful not to appear in public.
At the second level of the circle of trust that surrounds the presidential candidate of Ahora Nación are five candidates for the bicameral Congress. This is retired PNP Colonel Harvey Colchado; from former congresswoman Mirtha Vásquez, who was prime minister in Pedro Castillo’s government; and the former parliamentarians Jaime Delgado and Indira Huilca; and the current legislator Ruth Luque.
(Photo: GEC Archive)
Colchado, according to this newspaper’s sources, is part of the team that advises Lopez Chau in citizen security.
Vásquez, Huilca and Luque came to the helmet party, after an alliance between Ahora Nación and leftist parties was frustrated before the November primary elections.
They were contacted by Salcedo to make coalitions viable, and when an agreement was not reached, the three chose to join Ahora Nación.
“They are listened to, but it is not that they are so close to the candidate. Luque is probably more relevant. The three are a cohesive group, their point of view is taken into account, but within the circle of trust they are at a second level,” said the same sources.
(Photo: PCM)
Another candidate who has a voice is Patricia Correa, who resigned from the position of Minister of Education at the beginning of Dina Boluarte’s government, after the first deaths recorded in the December 2022 protests.
Other sources close to the leadership of Ahora Nación indicated to El Comercio that Lopez Chau He does not want to be pigeonholed as the candidate from the south, where he has 7.3% voting intention, according to the latest Datum survey. They added that, after launching his campaign at the end of January in Juliaca, Puno, the former rector of the UNI prioritized a tour of the north of the country and was in Tumbes, Piura, Chiclayo, Trujillo and Chimbote.
They also pointed out that he was in the east and last weekend he returned to the south, when he took a tour in Cusco. “He can arrive and enter any place and not be stoned,” they said.
The same sources reported that one of the measures that was adopted, as part of a strategy, last January was that Lopez Chau keep silent. This coincided with the revelation that he was imprisoned in the 1970s during the dictatorship of Juan Velasco Alvarado. At that time, the applicant offered different versions.
They also pointed out that one of the short-term objectives is that the voting intention of Lopez Chau It is also reflected for the lists of the chambers of deputies and senators. Now Nación has 2.5% for the single district senate election. With this, they would not pass the fence.
The anti-corruption prosecutor’s office investigates Lopez Chau for the alleged crimes of fraudulent embezzlement and incompatible negotiation.
According to the fiscal thesis, the presidential candidate would have used UNI resources to hire three members of Ahora Nación: Salcedo, Salvador Arévalo La Rosa and Leandro Josué Gámez Ramos. Furthermore, funds from the aforementioned university would have been used for the electoral campaign of the Hull party in the interior of the country.
