Economy & Trade, Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

PERU: And on Palm Sunday, Alan Garcia Resuscitated

Ángel Páez

LIMA, Apr 17 2006 (IPS) - Former Peruvian president Alan García is experiencing one of the most spectacular political resurrections in the history of Latin America, after heading a government from 1985 to 1990 that was severely criticised for hyperinflation and soaring unemployment and extreme poverty.

Since the elections on Apr. 9, Palm Sunday, the social democratic candidate has come closer and closer to the likelihood that he will face off with the winning candidate – retired army colonel Ollanta Humala – in the presidential runoff election in late May or early June.

With 89 percent of the votes counted, García is 95,000 votes ahead of centre-right candidate Lourdes Flores. García so far has 24.41 percent of the vote compared to 23.43 percent for Flores.

The nationalist Humala took 30.94 percent of the vote in the first round.

The tall, charismatic García, an outstanding orator with an “anti-oligarchic,” left-leaning discourse, won the 1985 elections when he was just 35 years old. But by the time he left office, he had a reputation as the leader of one of the worst governments in Peruvian history, marked by economic chaos, soaring unemployment and runaway inflation.

At the same time, the Sendero Luminoso Maoist rebels and Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement were waging a guerrilla war, while the armed forces carried out their own “dirty war”, which targeted not only the insurgents but left-wing dissidents as well.

After Alberto Fujimori defeated renowned writer Mario Vargas Llosa in the 1990 presidential elections, García stayed in the country, facing allegations of corruption, and leading the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA) party, which was founded in 1924.

But when Fujimori staged a “self-coup” in April 1992, dissolving Congress and suspending constitutional guarantees with the support of the armed forces and the National Intelligence Service (SIN), run by the president’s shady intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos, troops were sent to arrest García, who fled to Colombia where he was granted political asylum.

García returned to Peru after Fujimori’s 1990-2000 authoritarian regime came to an end, after spending nearly nine years in exile in Colombia and France, to run for president in 2001.

After a brief campaign, he surprised the country by taking second place, with 25 percent of the vote, behind opposition leader Alejandro Toledo, who garnered 36 percent. The runoff was won by Toledo, who captured 50 percent, not far ahead of García’s 46.9 percent.

The former president had provided a spectacular example of political resurrection. And it was not the last time he would do so.

In the campaign for this month’s elections, García, who during the administration of incumbent President Toledo has led the opposition in Congress, did not look poised to make a comeback, consistently appearing third or fourth in the polls.

The biggest blow to his chances was the unexpected emergence of Humala, as an anti-establishment candidate who voters identify with Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia, and the rest of the wave of left-leaning governments in Latin America.

Next to Humala, García projected the image of a traditional, conservative career politician.

In the heat of the race, the former president began to voice more radical proposals, like once again setting up courts with “faceless judges”, used by Fujimori as a measure designed to protect judges from the retaliation of terrorist groups, but which actually granted impunity to a notoriously corrupt judiciary.

He also said that if he was elected, he would drastically cut the wages of public employees.

García toured outlying districts of Peru where Humala had his main support base – among the rural and urban poor – accusing the nationalist candidate of following the tradition of military strongmen who led the country into ruin.

“I admit that I committed errors because I was young, but I have changed. I am not a fool who would repeat the same things I did before, which did not work. I have learned and I have matured,” said García, who now sports greying sideburns, a paunch, and even more polished public speaking skills.

The business community, which backed Flores in the first round, has made it clear that it will throw its support behind the former president if he ends up competing with Humala in the runoff.

Julio Favre, the former president of the powerful National Confederation of Private Business Institutions, who had close ties to the Fujimori regime and backed Flores’s campaign, has stated that García is the only one capable of defeating Humala in the second round.

García won over a significant portion of voters, especially among the younger generation, unfamiliar with his administration. He targeted that age group by hiring a musician who plays reggaetón – a popular music genre – to compose and play a catchy theme song for his campaign. He even learned a few dance steps.

The question is, how did García stand out in a playing field of 21 presidential candidates, to make it into second or third place?

According to sociologist Romeo Grompone, with the Institute of Peruvian Studies (IEP), “he was able to transmit the concept that he has learned from his earlier experience, and he now presents himself as a sound political leader, completely different from the 35-year-old García who became president in 1985.”

“He was able to transmit a sensation of moderation, of reasonable change, and he has also moved around much more comfortably in the centre-left part of the spectrum,” Grompone told IPS.

Even analysts like Carlos Reyna, who blames the emergence of Fujimori’s corrupt regime on the failure of García’s government, acknowledge that the former president has changed.

“He has successfully reflected the social needs of the population, and has been able to relate to voters. That’s why he took the same percentage of votes that he won in 2001,” said Reyna, the author of a book on García’s five-year administration.

“His campaign promises are the same ones he made in the 2001 elections, except that now he has put them forward with greater forcefulness and more eloquently than other candidates,” he told IPS.

“It’s true that people who voted for him didn’t do so with the same high expectations that they had in 1985, but they do feel that he is closer to their interests (than the other candidates). Their level of support has declined. Now he took nearly one quarter of the votes, while historically APRA’s share never dropped below 40 percent,” he said.

But the big question is how much García has really changed. “What might have changed is his idea of politics, and the way he does politics,” said Reyna. “Of course, now he won’t want to nationalise the banking system, that nutty idea that marked a ‘before’ and ‘after’ in his term.”

“I now see him as more willing to adapt to orthodox economic policies, to seek out agreements with the vested interests, the international banking system, and the United States. In that sense, yes, he has changed,” said the analyst.

García is not only remembered for his failed economic policies – inflation had skyrocketed to 7,500 percent and the foreign debt had climbed to 20 billion dollars by the end of his term – but also for a paramilitary group that operated in those years under the protection of his personal secretary Agustín Mantilla, who later became interior minister.

Human rights violations were also committed in the context of the counterinsurgency war. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which investigated the 1980-2000 dirty war, held García politically responsible for the abuses committed by the armed forces during his presidency.

But the secretary-general of APRA, Congressman Mauricio Mulder, said such accusations no longer affect García. “People no longer respond to that. They tried to do the same thing in the 2001 campaign,” he told IPS. “Every period must be understood in its context. People have understood that it’s not possible to live looking back on the past.”

“At the same time, the 1985-1990 government was not the disaster it was made out to be,” Mulder added. “It’s true there was hyperinflation, but that was after the banks were nationalised (in July 1987), and because of economic and financial sabotage by the national bourgeoisie.”

“At that time, the great majority of the economically active population were employed in the formal sector, and were formally registered (in the social security system). Then along came Fujimori and the mass layoffs. So, people compare, and they know that the things that are said are an exaggeration,” he said.

Although it may take weeks for the final results of the first round of elections to be announced, García appears confident: he has already commissioned a new reggaetón theme song for the campaign for the runoff vote.