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(LIP-wb) -- The disappointing results of last Sunday's regional and municipal elections in Peru served as an eye-opener for some of the leaders of the ruling APRA party of President Alan Garcia. They recognize the slap on the face and admit that several errors were made during the campaign. However, there are also some - like Prime Minister Jorge del Castillo - who refuse to accept that the party has stumbled.

Even though del Castillo admitted that the numbers the National Office for Election Processes (ONPE) is releasing are not those the APRA had hoped for - at least 9 of the party's previous 12 regional governments were lost -, although he sees some sort of consolation in the fact that the main opposition force, the Nationalistic party of Ollanta Humala, has not won in any region.

Thus, the prism used by the head of Peru's ministerial cabinet to review the results leads to statements such as this: “The Peruvian Aprista party is the only party that remains as a party of national dimension. Some other parties have virtually disappeared, others are becoming strictly watchdog organizations”, he commented.

Despite the setback for the Aprista Party, del Castillo insisted that the president still "has more than 60 percent approval." The important thing "is that people see clear leadership in the president," he told reporters from the "Patio of Honor" at the Government Palace.

But evidently nobody, not even the most optimistic party members, can be satisfied with the results, including del Castillo. However, he abstains from showing any signs of weakness in lieu of upcoming meetings with a series of the newly elected regional governors who have their own agenda.

“One region more or less doesn't distract us from our dream" he justified, trying to settle the subject and to avoid hearing any more questions.

Javier Bedoya, spokesman for the conservative National Unity coalition led by Lourdes Flores, maintained that the electoral defeat of the government party falls to the Prime Minister as well as to the Chief of State, because it reinforces the impression that the APRA is not nothing without Garcia.

But there are also some leading Apristas who are more drastic in their analysis. For example, th party's faction leader in Parliament Javier Velasquez Quesquén admitted that the party leadership has chosen on occasion the wrong candidates.

The person in charge of the internal selection process, Secretary General Mauricio Mulder, obviously failed to adopt more democratic ways in this aspect. However, he maintained that the party of founder Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre continues to be the first force on a national level.

On more than one ocassion regional party supporters denounced irregularities in the designation of candidates for local and municipal governments, and accused the national party leadership of imposing candidates that did not count on the support of regional party bases.

A similar analysis made congressman Luis Alva Castro, who maintained that his party committed errors before and throughout the elections. This situation will have to be evaluated internally by the Aprista leadership.

“In the end, the errors committed internally during the campaign have reduced to us to this situation”, he referred and, unfortunately, these mistakes and the “internal mess” caused that the Apra lost the election for the mayor's office in the city of Trujillo for the first time in 40 years. The capital city of the La Libertad region in northern Peru is the party's cradle in the land of Haya de la Torre.

However, the party's optimists are swiftly adding that the triumph of Jose Murguía in the race for governor of La Libertad demonstrates that the "party of the star" has not lost its solid support in the country's North.

(text by Alejandro Castro Backus, Peru21.com)