Peru : At the double, Ollanta the outsider
From The Economist print edition
Mar 23rd 2006 | LIMA
A would-be caudillo and an election that is a parable of the dangers in the unfulfilled agenda of Latin American democracy
THE candidate of a newly formed Peruvian Nationalist Party, Ollanta Humala bounds onto the rickety stage. Some 3,000 people have gathered in the square in Santa Anita, a lower-middle class Lima suburb poised uneasily between an aspiration to prosperity and the fear of poverty. Dressed in a red T-shirt emblazoned “Love for Peru”, Mr Humala barks out his rabble-rousing message.
He blames big business and “traditional” politicians for the poverty and lack of opportunity that still afflict many Peruvians. He wants a new constitution to allow the state “a role in generating wealth”, to ban foreign (and especially Chilean) companies from “strategic” businesses and “review” past tax breaks given to foreign mining companies to attract investment. “Nationalism is a republic of our sovereignty over our resources that God placed beneath our soil for the benefit of our children and which right now are beyond their reach,” he roars.
Mr Humala, a former army lieutenant-colonel who was cashiered for rebellion, lacks a coherent manifesto and previous political experience. Yet he now looks the likeliest winner of what is still a close-fought presidential election on April 9th (see chart). What is less clear is whether he might win outright or in a run-off in May.
It would not be the first time that an outsider has snatched Peru's presidency from more illustrious rivals. In 1990, Alberto Fujimori, then a little-known university rector, emerged to defeat Mario Vargas Llosa, a liberal and one of Latin America's best-known writers. But in 1990 Peru's plight was catastrophic: under Alan García, a young populist, hyperinflation and mismanagement shrank the economy, and the Shining Path, a Maoist terrorist group, was running amok. In desperation, Peruvians turned to a fresh face.
What is paradoxical about Mr Humala's rise in the polls is that Peru has been doing well by its recent standards. It recovered democracy in 2000, after the resignation of Mr Fujimori, who had governed for a decade as an elected autocrat. The economy has grown at an average of 5% for the past four years, rising to 6.7% last year.
Some of the growth comes from high world prices for Peru's minerals. There is much debate over how much has trickled down to ordinary people. Officially, poverty has fallen only from 54% in 2001 to 51% in 2004, though the figures are not reliable. Export agriculture, manufacturing, tourism and construction are all growing impressively and generating jobs. So why is Mr Humala, the self-declared scourge of the status quo, so popular?
The immediate answer is that the other candidates have disappointed. Lourdes Flores, a worthy but dull conservative, has run an energetic campaign. But she has failed to shake off the charge that she represents big business (of which Peru, sadly, has little). Mr García is a skilled political operator, but many Peruvians remember his government, and wince.
If the polls are right, Ms Flores will face Mr Humala in a run-off. Until recently, they suggested she would win this easily. Mr Humala's support dipped in February after claims that he was responsible for disappearances and torture during the “dirty war” against the Shining Path. It has since recovered, while Ms Flores has lost momentum. Apoyo, a polling firm, now suggests that each would get 50% in a run-off. If undecided voters continue to swing behind Mr Humala, he will win.
That prospect has finally shaken complacent foreign investors. Some pundits see Mr Humala as part of a left-wing wave sweeping across Latin America. He is supported by Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and, it is claimed, has been helped by the victory in Bolivia in December of Evo Morales, a socialist of Andean Indian descent.
Mr Humala has raised race as an issue. But he is a typical product of Peru's provincial middle class: he is mestizo (of mixed race), speaks no Indian language and went to a private school. His nationalism is that of the populist military caudillo. His brother, Antauro, whom he has never publicly criticised, organised a fascist movement of ex-soldiers which in January 2005 briefly seized a small town in the Andes, killing five people. In 2000, as Mr Fujimori's regime collapsed, the two brothers staged a curious military rebellion. Perhaps deliberately, this distracted attention from the flight of Vladimiro Montesinos, Mr Fujimori's notorious intelligence chief.
That Mr Humala has not, so far, swept all before him is proof that some Peruvians do think things have improved. But behind his support is a deep-seated resentment among many others that they are missing out on progress. That is the fault of government—rather than of business or the “neo-liberal” economic model, as Mr Humala claims. Even by regional standards, education and health services are poor in Peru, and infrastructure is lacking.
That failure goes back decades. But Alejandro Toledo, the president since 2001, squandered an unrivalled opportunity. He failed to reform the judiciary, or to cut the armed forces down to size. Despite the growing economy, government anti-poverty programmes are “pathetically poor”, says Richard Webb, a former central-bank governor. “Less than 1% of GDP is spent on them, and it's spent badly.” What Mr Toledo and the outgoing Congress are remembered for, rather, is for having raised their own salaries.
In today's Latin America, neglect of poverty and social programmes is an open invitation to populist outsiders. That Mr Humala may be elected despite—or because of—being loathed by most better-off Peruvians and much of the country's media is a backhanded tribute to democracy. Many poorer Peruvians, especially those in the Andes or who have migrated from there, identify with him. “He's from the provinces, and he's suffered himself, the same as us. He's our brother,” said Rey Carlos Nolasco, a shopkeeper, at the meeting in Santa Anita.
The fear is what Mr Humala would do with power if he gets it. One theory is that he would turn out to be like Lucio Gutiérrez, another former army colonel, who won power in Ecuador in 2002 by campaigning as an outsider, but adopted moderate policies in office before being overthrown for heavy-handedness (see article). Another is that Mr Humala would be a less economically competent and more thuggish version of Mr Fujimori.
Peru retains an authoritarian streak that is vanishing in many other parts of Latin America. The country has seen a transition to democracy every ten years for the past half century, notes Julio Cotler, a sociologist at Lima's Institute for Peruvian Studies. If Mr Humala does win, it is to be hoped that it will not need another one in a few years' time.
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