As if making the political comeback of the century wasn’t the ultimate in good fortune, Peruvian president-elect Alan Garcia has gotten lucky once again:

Peru’s leftwing Chavista presidential candidate, Ollanta Humala, is watching his political party, one that was so eagerly expecting victory, splinter into disintegration. In the mire of their defeat to Garcia, they’ve cracked up.

What does that mean for anti-Chavista president-elect, Alan Garcia?

A more powerful political party, one that now holds the highest number of seats in Congress. Prior to the crackup, it was Humala’s far-left party which was set to control the Congress. Not any more. And it’s likely to mean more political power to Garcia himself.

Garcia’s APRA party already was a pretty strong one, its organization in fact is second to none in Peru, its party operatives almost cult-like in their crisp discipline and fanaticism. After all, their organization – even with a damaged-merchandise candidate like Garcia – was instrumental in putting him into the presidency.

But now with Humala’s party breaking apart, its rats fleeing a sinking ship as they realize there will be no chavista goodies to be had, Garcia only stands to gain more power, as legislative power now aligns with his party.

On the whole, this could be a good thing if Garcia governs well.

It’s also part of a regional trend:

In Colombia, President Alvaro Uribe’s party is a very strong and centralized one with control of both the executive and legislative branches. In Venezuela and Bolivia, it’s the same story. In the U.S., same story. Now, Peru is showing the same trend, a winner-take-all trend that concentrates power in one group’s hands, and this keeps the government from being tied up in inaction, on the whole. (Mexico and Ecuador are not there yet, their governments are fragmented and nobody can ever get anything done).

If a leader is a good one, like Colombia’s Uribe, some real accomplishments can be the result of a concentrated power. If a leader is a bad one, like Venezuela’s Chavez, the result is ruin.

Given Alan Garcia’s own words at least (or in the Spanish original if you can read it), the outlook should be cautiously optimistic. By extension, strength in Garcia’s power is something that could be very good for his efforts to stamp out chavismo in our hemisphere..

Daniel at Venezuela News & Views was the first to spot this trend in his pre-election post here.

Agencia EFE followed up with the first news reports, in this post here. Daniel had additional analysis on it here. (His last serious post before soccer overtook him!)

Yesterday, announcement came of the big crackup within the Humala party here.

Inka at Journal Peru has additional first-rate analysis about why the Humala party fell apart here.

Matthew Shugart has excellent details about how Peru’s government actually works, the exact nuts and bolts, and a good analytical reading of the developments here. He wrote this a few days ago, so the actual crackup is not covered, only the run-up to it.

Today, Goldman Sachs has the same take I do, seeing the net result of this crackup as likely to strengthen Garcia’s powers. They write:

Crisis in Humala Coalition Improves Garcia’s Governance Outlook

Mr. Carlos Torres Caro, former vice-presidential candidate in the Humala ticket, and three other elected legislators of Uni????n Por el Per???? (UPP), one of the two parties that supported Ollanta Humala in the presidential elections, announced their resignation from UPP and the formation of an independent legislative bloc. The defection of the four elected UPP legislators leaves the Humala legislative bloc with 41 legislators, still the largest in the future Congress, which will be inaugurated at the end of July. The defections were due to disagreements with Mr. Humala, who is trying to form an opposition force, the Frente Nacionalista, under his leadership.

Comment: Following his defeat in the June 4 election, Mr. Humala is facing difficulties to keep his political coalition, the UPP-PNP (Union Por el Per????-Partido Nacionalista Peruano), united. There is speculation that other UPP figures could also leave the Humala camp or that UPP as a whole could break with Mr. Humala. If UPP breaks with Mr. Humala’s PNP (Partido Nacionalista Peruano), Mr. Humala will no longer have the largest bloc in the future Congress. This is because, of the 41 seats won by his coalition, 15 belong to UPP (already excluding the 4 defections mentioned above). Hence, a potential UPP-PNP break-up would leave Mr. Humala with the second largest bloc in Congress (with 26 seats) after Mr. Garc????a’s Apra, who won 36 seats.

In all, the crisis in the Humala camp is good news for incoming President Alan Garc????a’s governance outlook. This is because: (1) it reduces the probability that Mr. Humala will be able to organize a strong opposition force and obstruct key legislation; and (2) it increases the probability that, through agreements with other political forces, Mr. Garc????a will be able to build a working majority in Congress.