Peru Election 2006

By Maxwell A. Cameron, FOCALPOINT, January-February 2006, Volume 5, Number 1, pp. 1-2.
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The Outsider as an Effect of the System: Peru’s Ollanta Humala
Maxwell A. Cameron
Does support for outsider candidate Ollanta Humala indicate that some Peruvian voters are, once again, poised to shake up the political system? From August 2005 to mid-January 2006, Humala’s popularity grew from seven to 28% in the polls, but by late January it dropped to 22%. With an 8-10% lead, Lourdes Flores Nano, leader of the National Unity (UN) alliance, seems likely to win first place in the April 9 election. If she does not capture 50% plus one vote, however, she must enter a second round.
Like Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Lucio Gutiérrez of Ecuador, Humala launched his political career by leading an unsuccessful military rebellion. That earned him bona fide anti-system status. Yet Humala’s candidacy is, in some respects, a predictable effect of the way the Peruvian political system rewards political amateurs who pose as strongmen.
The formula for winning power in Peru is to capture enough votes to occupy the presidential palace, and then use executive power to bully the congress and courts into submission. The public not only tolerates but expects the executive to act like a legislator; members of congress, operating at the behest of the executive, or as its mortal enemies, routinely act like judges; and the judiciary itself is the grand prize of the whole political struggle because control over judges permits corruption and legal persecution of adversaries.
Humala initially looked like a tough anti-corruption crusader who could capitalize on widespread disapproval of public institutions, especially the president, parties, and congress. He threatened to investigate corruption by incumbent Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006), whose approval ratings have hovered between 8 and 14% since mid-2003. The current congress is denounced daily in the press as a grotesque house of horrors where the owner of a hotel of ill-repute can fraternize with a confessed bigamist, and nepotism and influence peddling are shamelessly pursued. Leaving aside illicit earnings, the average income of a member of congress is 18 times the nation’s per capita income. Voters are itching to throw the bums out.
Peruvian voters have shown a penchant for supporting outsiders, especially since the election of Alberto Fujimori in 1990. When Fujimori was detained in Chile in November 2005, many of his votes, especially in the southern highlands, migrated to Humala. Humala’s Peruvian Nationalist Party was not properly registered in time for the elections, however, so he is running on another ticket—the Union for Peru (UPP).
After a promising start, Humala’s campaign was beset by serious problems. There were two legal challenges initiated against his candidacy, followed by allegations that Humala helped plan a futile and bloody military uprising led by his brother, Antauro, in January of last year. Infighting over spots on the list of congressional candidates led to a bogus assassination plot and the seizure of party locales. One of his vice presidential candidates has been accused of sexual harassment. Worst of all, there are credible allegations that in 1992 Humala was “Captain Carlos,” a military commander who operated a counter-insurgency base responsible for documented cases of torture and disappearances.
In contrast to Humala, Flores has run a tight ship. A long-time leader of the Popular Christian Party (PPC), the main pillar of the UN alliance, Flores is a smart, hard-working candidate, who enjoys popularity outside the affluent districts of Lima, the historic stronghold of the PPC. Yet her popularity in the provinces and shantytowns is almost entirely due to her personal appeal rather than to organized party-society linkages. She is also, in spite of efforts at renewal, surrounded by insiders: her number two for congress is Javier Bedoya de Vivanco, son of the founder of the PPC and brother of Luis Bedoya, who was sentenced to jail for accepting money from Vladimiro Montesinos, Fujimori’s corrupt intelligence chief. One of her two vice presidential candidates is Arturo Woodman, a prominent businessman who propitiated meetings between Dionisio Romero, head of the Romero economic group, and Montesinos. Other members of her congressional slate have questionable links to the Fujimori government and to Montesinos. Flores’ financial backers allegedly offered money to a marginal candidate (one of 24 registered in January) to throw his support behind Flores.
The American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA), Peru’s best-organized and financed political party, stands at about 13% in the polls. It’s candidate, former president Alan García, occupies the center of the ideological spectrum. His strategy is to portray Flores as the candidate of business, and Humala as a harbinger of chaos, violence, and improvisation. The trouble is, with high negative ratings, García can locate himself close to the average voter, but the average voter doesn’t want to be close to him. Voters over 30 remember how García’s term (1985-1990) ended in hyperinflation, economic collapse, and Hobbesian levels of insecurity. García rekindled these bitter memories by selecting retired admiral Luis Giampietri, who was implicated in the prison massacre in El Frontón in 1986, as one of his vice presidential candidates. García might be a long shot, but his strategy is to position APRA to capture the political windfall should one of the front-runners fizzle. With Humala’s campaign stalled, the big question at this time is who will place second in the likely event that Flores does not win in the first round?
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Maxwell A. Cameron is Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia. E-mail: Cameron@politics.ubc.ca. Read more on the “Peru Election 2006” weblog: http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/peru/