The Castañeda are three and they are real men, the presidential candidate of Solidaridad Nacional used to joke while he was being photographed with his little sons Luis and Dario. His wife Rosario Pardo, dressed in a yellow suit that identifies the party that her husband founded, is also from Chiclayo and she accompanies him in all his political activities.

The boy baptized as Luis Castañeda was born in Lambayeque on June 21^st 1945. Two days after his birth, a dramatic episode would occur. His mother died and that lack would affect his whole life. His father assumed the affective rising and the education, at the same time he was the Mayor of Chiclayo City Town.

In El Porvenir
He spent the first years of his life in El Porvenir, in that city, a tree-lined middle-class urbanization, fortunately it had primary and secondary schools, so that he could complete his elementary education. The family moved to Lima, the young registered in Católica University, where he studied Law. In 1982 he would follow the classic course at Centro de Altos Estudios Militares (CAEM) from where he keeps good memories and where he made very good friends. Later, he would make the communal development specialization at Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería.

Experience Gained
During his career he had been director of Cofide, Epsep, Emmsa, Esmil, Enaco and Emapa as well as president of Instituto Peruano de Seguridad Social (IPSS). He had also been alderman of the City Town of Lima, post he assumed between 1980 and 1983, when Eduardo Orrego was Mayor for Acción Popular. In the private sector he had been vice-president of Azucarera Paramonga and president of Caja de Beneficios Sociales del Pescado. He had been professor in the following univeristies: San Antonio Abad in Cusco, Pedro Ruiz Gallo in Lambayeque and Altiplano Univerisity in Puno

In the IPPS
His work, being in charge of Instituto Peruano de Seguridad Social, put him in important positions in Peruvian politics. Alan García’s government left a terrible inheritance in that institution. The sick should make long queues since dawn, only to get an appointment in the crowded doctor’s offices. The drugstore lacked medicine and the administration was bad. In few months and surrounded by a good team, the situation changed. He improved the administration only simplifying it. He bought modern equipment and provided the drugstore with medicine. Meanwhile, the medical staff was permanently up-dated, something that the old employees remember.On August 1995, surprisingly, the government decided to put him away from the position without giving explanations. According to Castañeda’s point of view, the decision obeyed his opposition to the ultimate privatization of IPSS.

Wedding
On December 6^th 1948, he got married with Rosario Pardo, a beautiful lady from Chiclayo. He met her in his several business trips to that city. The couple had two sons: Luis and Dario with whom he frequently goes bike- riding around the parks of his district. She has closely worked with his husband in some of his main tasks, for instance, when he had been in charge of IPSS reconstruction, she devoted her full time in the third age programmes. She organized clubs, musical workshops and entertainment trips around the country.

Suveys
Luis Castañeda Lossio is not affected by the national surveys that put him in the third place, far away from the first. He says that the result of those surveys is relative and he is sure that he will defeat the one who will face him in second round. He does not reject the possibility that his opponent could be Alberto Andrade.In his prosellytist trips around the country, he affirmed that he had found good acceptance, specially among the workers, that in some way, had received the benefits of IPSS at a certain time. This encouraged and allowed him to assure that those people influence the surveys upwards and downwards, phenomena that according to him will let him overpass the current differences.

Against lies
Sometimes upset because of what he had to face, Castañeda was the first candidate who felt the effects of a dirty war against his candidature. Public employees’ demonstrations hitting his delegation with stones, infiltrated police officers filming his steps in order to frighten his collaborators, serious calumnies in the press called chicha. “This is dangerous” he said “not only for the electoral process but also because the country could collapse if the process is not totally transparent.” As well as other opposition candidates, Castañeda offers to desactivate the scrutiners commission of Justice Power and Public Ministry.