In late November and early December, Peruvian business leaders gathered in the industrial city of Arequipa for the 50th Annual Conference of Executives (CADE). When the polling firm Ipsos Apoyo asked CADE attendees whether they approved of the job performance of Peruvian president Ollanta Humala, a remarkable 75 percent said yes.

In other words, a former Hugo Chávez acolyte—who led a failed military coup in 2000, who reportedly received money from Chávez during his 2006 presidential campaign, and whose wife once earned $4,000 per month in “consulting” fees from a pro-Chávez newspaper based in Caracas—now enjoys overwhelming support from the Peruvian business community.