Peru’s Populist Gamble
by MARK ENGLER
The Nation on line, April 18, 2006
On April 9 Ollanta Humala, a stocky 43-year-old ex-military officer who exudes a plainspoken charisma, claimed victory in the first round of Peru’s presidential elections. Campaigning on a left-leaning platform, he vowed to pull his country out of a pending free-trade agreement with the United States. Humala’s campaign echoed criticisms of market-driven “neoliberal” globalization from reformers like Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Néstor Kirchner in Argentina and Luis Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil. But Humala–a political figure with a dubious past and an uncertain ideology–does not fit easily into the political trend embodied by these leaders.
Garnering 31 percent of the vote, Humala bested a wide range of less striking opponents–although he did not win enough votes to avoid a runoff, expected to be held in late May or early June. In an unusually close battle for runner-up, centrist former president Alan Garcia, who governed Peru in the late 1980s, currently has a thin lead over conservative business candidate Lourdes Flores, who campaigned to be elected the country’s first woman president. With just over 88 percent of votes counted, Garcia leads 24.42 percent to 23.34 percent in his bid to enter the runoff against Humala.
Relative to these two competitors, Humala has clearly positioned himself as the most progressive candidate in the running. Yet whether he genuinely belongs within the region’s resurgent left is hotly debated.
Humala has a limited background in politics and social movement organization. He first gained notoriety as the leader of a failed coup in 2000 against President Alberto Fujimori. He remains a political novice, and his distance from traditional parties is part of his appeal–Peruvians have a penchant for electing outsiders, having picked both Fujimori and Alejandro Toledo as relative unknowns. But with no institutional foundation, Humala’s political program, which he describes as “nationalist,” often sounds vague.
“He is going to be a wildcard if he’s elected,” says Larry Birns, longtime observer of Latin America and director of the Washington, DC-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs. “He very late in the game became an aspirant member of the Latin American ‘Pink Tide.’ His language has been quite radical. The question is whether his stances will erode once he’s in office.”
Humala is campaigning as a law-and-order candidate who can effectively battle crime and corruption. His past performance as a strongman has suggested some authoritarian tendencies. Perhaps most seriously, Humala stands accused of committing human rights abuses when he served as a military commander in the early 1990s. At that time the Peruvian government’s zealous counterinsurgency against the Maoist Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path, turned the military into a second force terrorizing the country’s Andean villages.
The charges against Humala, says Coletta Youngers, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America, “are very well-founded allegations based on testimony that was collected at the time by the Red Cross. The accusations go beyond implicating Humala in crimes committed under his command and finger him directly for cases of torture, extra-juridical execution and disappearances.”
Allegations have also surfaced that link Humala and several people in his campaign with Vladimiro Montesinos, the notorious intelligence chief who served in the Fujimori dictatorship of the 1990s. Videotapes showing Montesinos paying bribes and coordinating a vast network of corruption during the past regime helped to land him in jail; he is charged with further crimes including murder and drug trafficking. While the government has established no wrongdoing on the part of Humala, suggested connections with the shadowy Montesinos continue to generate controversy.
Finally, Humala has struggled to distance himself from his eccentric family. His father founded the ultranationalist etnocacerismo movement, which continues to be championed by his brothers. The movement takes extreme stands on halting immigration and expanding capital punishment. It promotes the racial superiority of indigenous Peruvians, approximately 40 percent of the population, over those of European, Asian or African ancestry.
Complexity of Populism
Those in the United States who know anything about Humala probably have heard him likened to Chávez and Morales. Conservatives and progressives alike are prone to make such comparisons–some trying to paint a frightening picture of Humala as a follower of Washington’s fiery antagonist in Caracas, and others expressing hope that he could be another Evo, a voice of the region’s downtrodden.
For its part, the White House may have learned that it’s better off keeping quiet. The Bush Administration’s past denunciations of progressive candidates, like Morales, only boosted the popularity of those contenders among a Latin American electorate that views Washington with wary mistrust.
If it were to speak up, the Administration would no doubt group Humala under the rubric of “radical populism,” a framework it regularly uses to describe its Latin American opposition. Officials like Gen. James Hill, former head of the US Southern Command, and Donald Rumsfeld identify populism not merely as a notable political trend in Latin America. It is, they say, an “emerging threat” to US security. Allowing for little discrimination between political movements, the charge of radical populism serves as a blunt instrument for Washington–one that can be wielded against all those challenging neoliberal economics.
This willfully obscures the complexity of Latin American populism. On the one hand, the ideology has a history of demagoguery, nativism and false promises for reform. This negative brand of populism was traditionally cultivated by dictators who tried to garner support for their military rule by fanning nationalist sentiment and channeling money into networks of patronage.
Populism can also be a praiseworthy impulse. In a region with endemic poverty, where the economic gap separating hillside shantytowns and colonial-style mansions has widened through two decades of neoliberalism, concern for the well-being of a country’s impoverished majority is overdue. And in nations where small groups of elites work the levers of power, expanding access to the machinery of democracy is vital. Over half of Peru’s estimated 28 million residents live in poverty, and while GDP growth has exceeded 5 percent in recent years, little of the prosperity enjoyed by multinational mining and energy companies has trickled down to reach the Peruvian people.
Humala surely qualifies as a populist, and one can hope that he will turn out to be the positive kind. Unfortunately, at present, even those who applaud the progressive democratic revival in Latin America do well to view his rise critically.
Skeptics on the Left
That large segments of the Peruvian left are critical of Humala is a fact not often noted when comparisons are made to Chávez and Morales. “He bandies about socialist ideas in a highly improvised manner, but cannot explain how he plans to bring about change, nor with whom,” said Socialist Party leader Javier Diez Canseco of Humala in an interview with the Inter-Press Service. “There is a divorce between what he says and what he does.”
Diez Canseco, a steadfast activist and political organizer, would better fit the mold of Latin America’s new progressive leadership. He polled under 1 percent in this week’s elections, however. Since Izquierda Unida, Peru’s coalition of progressive parties, fell apart in the early 1990s, the left has been weak and divided. “This has allowed figures like Humala to fill the void,” says Youngers.
Skeptics of Humala’s ascendancy fear that the candidate could repeat the performance of Ecuador’s Lucio Gutiérrez, another ex-military officer and past coup leader. Gutiérrez was hailed in 2002 as a fresh addition to the New Left when he was elected president on a platform criticizing neoliberalism. Once in power, he quickly turned on his campaign promises, alienated his indigenous supporters, backed Washington’s conservative economic policies and tried to pack the Ecuadorian courts to forestall impeachment on corruption charges. With massive street protests demanding Gutiérrez’s resignation, a special session of Congress voted to remove him from office in April 2005. Well before then, Ecuador quietly disappeared from the list of countries whose leaders represent a leftist revitalization.
It is not clear what will happen in the second round of Peru’s presidential elections, nor what outcome would be best for those who have benefited least from Toledo’s neoliberal rule. Humala’s first-round win was not as decisive as some expected. The often-hostile Peruvian press declared it “a victory with the flavor of defeat.” Opinion polls suggest that Lourdes Flores could prevail over Humala in a runoff. Many analysts believe that Alan Garcia, a gifted orator, could prove to be both a better campaigner and more adept at cutting deals with voting blocs whose candidates have been eliminated.
Neither of these candidates, if elected, would go far toward reversing the policies that have regularly kept Toledo’s approval ratings below 15 percent. A large part of Humala’s draw, especially among the rural poor, is a legitimate frustration with an economic system that has provided them with little opportunity to overcome their hardships and with the political parties that have failed to instate significant reforms. This is what the Bush Administration consistently overlooks in its blanket condemnation of Latin American populism–and what makes it increasingly estranged from the region’s newly elected governments.
If Humala can overcome his authoritarian leanings and live up to his campaign pledges, he could chart a promising new course for his country. For the Peruvian people, believing that he can do so of his own volition, or that they will be able hold him accountable, would be a serious gamble. But absent a better option, it may be one they are willing to take.
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13 replies on “The Nation (US) on Ollanta Humala”
I agree with most of this analysis, except when is said that two decades of neoliberalism has ‘widened’ the differences between the poor and the rich.
Twenty years ago, the ‘whites’ of Peru were very much in their own world. They would have never allowed someone like Toledo be President, or someone like Magaly Medina be a popular TV icon. The most you would have got was the infamous Ferrando, and only because he was a clown.
The poor now are a poor as they have ever been, they can’t go lower. The few rich families than owned Peru at the time of Velasco are now diluted into a few more (though still few) families that now include those who were in the military dictatorship, or those who become rich during Belaunde, Alan, Fujimori and recently Toledo governments, obviously taking advantge of the ‘viveza criolla’. ‘Viveza criolla’ is a very democratic attribute, and if anyone who lives in Peru (OK, Lima) would not agree with me.
So, what is this ‘widening’ about? I beleive this is very true in the US, where the middle classes have suffered, and the oil owners have definitely got richer. There is virtually no middle class in Peru, so there are the poor, who can’t be poorer, and the ‘white’ who now have to share their exclusive clubs with the ‘mestizos’ and the ‘cholos’.
A quick drive to what wee before ‘residential districts’ in Lima: Lince, San Isidro, Miraflores would quickly make you aware that they are no more ‘white people’ territory. In my opinion, only certain streets of Chacarilla (Miraflores/North Surquillo), El Golf (San Isidro), La Perla (Callao) and La Molina still remain white, the rest is a very healthy mix.
Javier, I think your perspective is narrow and you shouldn’t offer conjecture on the U.S. circumstance. The world is getting richer with the entrance of China and India (and even Brazil’s presence is meaningful) into the global markets. There is more money than ever.
The middle class in America is not getting poorer from a purchasing power parity point of view since China provides cheaper goods. It has made great strides. But the richest people in the U.S. are getting richer because they can leverage their existing wealth to become even richer. Their capital (wealth) is used efficiently.
The average indigenous Peruvian doesn’t feel that because they don’t participate in the global economy. They don’t participate in the global economy because of the stifling bureacracy. So the gap widens in Peru because the wealthy there gain and keep out the poor from participating in any way. Peruvian capital is not used efficiently. The issues you perceive aren’t political, they’re entirely economic and in Peru’s case has to do with the internal economy that has no maturity and no leadership to make that happen.
There was a series of articles about the fun spots in Peru in an American newspaper the other day. Not a single Mestizo or indigenous person in any photos. That’s not integration. Are you saying indians and european peruvians are sitting down to dinner every night at la rosa nautica, nightclubs and other expensive places?
I agree with you javier that the face of the lima has changed. However I am not well versed on the goings on of either San Isidro or Miraflores. I have professor friend who tells me that some peruvians he knows of rural origin have made their way to the more expense areas of the province of Lima, but my familiarity is mostly with Santa Anita, Lurin, Callao, Brenha, Ate.
I liked the article and even I as a supporter of Humala have a healthy dose of questions with regards to whether his deeds will match his rhetoric. I do like that he has been firm in questioning the antidemocratic manner in which Toledo is attempting to ram through the TLC, and his discourse about sticking to his guns and not making alliances which might– IMO would likely — result in under the table dealing. Correct javier this is the way of the world and more so in peru. My father a cholo now who came out of a village speaking mostly runasimi always tells me “tienes que ser vivo.” It is a necessity in Peru. But what is your angle javier are you a “centrist,” “new leftist” etc? My impression from some of your previous post is that you are pro neoliberalism in its current stage but appear to use your cynicsm to play of that rhetoric. I’m not criticizing you I am just curious.
Max did you read my recent posting with regards to an article posted yester 04-19-06 that dealt with Carlos Tapias’ change of heart on Humala?
Cheers
Javier:
That article says that the gap has widened in “the region”, not specifically in Perú, and furthermore it is talking about the gap between rich and poor, not “white” and “indigenous”. I believe you are correct in that the Peruvian upper class is less “white” than it used to be, although there is still a pretty clear difference between Miraflores and Ate Vitarte.
The gap between rich and poor in South America, Perú included, is truly stunning. As CEPAL noted in it’s 2004 Panorama (you can download the CEPAL reports from their web page, http://www.cepal.org — they’re worth reading):
“La evolución de los índices de desigualdad en los últimos
trece años da cuenta de la tendencia convergente de los
países [de América Latina y el Caribe] hacia una acentuación de la inequidad en la distribución
del ingreso. Esta tendencia se manifiesta incluso
en las economías que históricamente habían mostrado los
niveles más bajos de desigualdad de la región, que han ido
perdiendo paulatinamente las conquistas logradas en este
terreno. Por consiguiente, en la actualidad una alta proporción
de países se ubica en los estratos alto y muy alto de
desigualdad de la distribución del ingreso. Los elevados
niveles de concentración se deben en gran medida al abultado
porcentaje de recursos concentrados en el 10% más
alto de la escala distributiva, característica que distingue la
distribución del ingreso de América Latina de la observada
en el resto del mundo.” (p. 88)
For example, the ration between the average income of the richest 10% with the average income of the poorest 40% of the population in Perú was 15.6 in 2003; in Ecuador 15.6, in Bolivia 30.3, in Colombia 25.0 and in Venezuela 14.5 (the last four figures are from 2002). In comparison, in 1997 the numbers were Perú 17.9, Bolivia 25.9, Ecuador 11.5, Colombia 21.4 and Venezuela 14.9. (All figures from CEPAL’s 2005 Panorama.)
I should add that these numbers are quite high, by world standards, although the United States seems to be doing its best to catch up.
I’m sorry, Javier, but I have to disagree
If I take a look at Peru’s social landscape I consider about half of Lima’s population and in most other cities “middle class” people.
For example, I don’t consider people who can afford an apartment for $400 rent per month neither rich nor poor. I don’t consider people who earn $10,000 per year neither rich nor poor.
I’ve read many comments and articles on various web sites and IMO there is this wrong perception and false impression everywhere.
Yes, about two third of the population is poor. But it seems that everyone comes to the conclusion that the other third is rich or the so-called elite. Sure, the middle class is smaller than in other, wealthier countries but it does exist.
cheers
Inka
I have to agree with javier, although my viewpoint is limited. I have lived in Arequipa for a year, and while it is very different than Lima I have witnessed the class separation as he describes it- the poor are poor and the rest are doing o.k. Sure, there are some separations amongst the upper-class creating a sort of faux middle-class, but really it’s just poor and rich, with a few elite-class at the top.
As for the analysis of Ollanta, I feel a bit differently. Of course, I’m a U.S. citizen, so the pressure I feel living here is a bit different. As rumors of property nationalization and immigration crackdowns circulate I began to evaluate the amount of time I have left here. While Ollanta certainly differs from Chavez in many ways the fact that Chavez supports Ollanta is enough to strike a certain amount of fear into my heart.
I will not argue that the U.S. is a greedy nation with more money and power than they can handle, and many of her citizens are the same. However, nixing the FTA with the U.S. is effectively spitting in her face, and while many may not agree with her policy that’s no reason to refuse her as an ally.
Refusing the FTA also hurts the Peruvian people. Yes, it will make the rich richer, just as it they do in the States, but the poor can also benefit. No, they don’t benefit to the same extremes as do the wealthy, but consider this scenario: two wealthy businessmen invest in the same company. One man invests $5,000, the other invests $50,000. Which will profit more? So it is with the poor. As with everyone they must start small. I know, corruption and politics play a part in all of this, but it is still possible, and the only way I see forward progression coming to Peru…
At the hands of Ollanta the country will likely face a 5 year setback, if not more, as trade and tourism slow while Ollanta cozies up to Chavez and Morales, scaring away tourists, investors, and all the dollars they bring!!
I stand corrected by Rici in that my message was confusing regarding race and poverty. Though that is a major misperception we continually assume.
It is interesting to me that we argue about who should be President and what will happen without having the same assessment of what is reality in Peru. Are we going to discussed based on what the CEPAL conclude from their incomplete and not planned statistics? Or based on what we see in a daily basis?
I see a lot of apristas living near Miami, next to military from the time of Bermudez, and next to some of Belaunde favorites. They come and go to Lima. Some of them are as Andeans as any, though most of them are typical costenios. Are they rich or middle class?
Also, do we all agree on what the campesino really thinks? Or we should decide for them. That regardless of the electoral results, as we should agree that mandatory vote from an uninformed population is much influenced by who gave the nicest speech regarding the 500 years of oppression and gave the biggest free chicken..which is a smart choice when there is limited or manipulated access to information.
I am biased that my experience is with the communities in Canta, Huaral, which are close to Lima. These communities are being deserted by the young people, who mostly goes to big cities and prefer to suffer Lima shanty-towns with the hope of getting ahead. A few of them achieve success (relatively speaking) and become major town donors, for the fiestas patronales, and in fewer case, help to install water and power services. This was the idea of progress in that particular area. The older people is so busy with keeping up their small crops and cattle, so they can eat the next day and maybe send their children to superior education in Lima.
Starting from this reality, talking about nationalism and 500 years of poverty does not seem to matter, unless it comes with a plan that creates jobs and opportunities. Wishful thinking is not enough.
The one good thing Toledo has said lately was asking to think voting for who we would give our money to. My opinion, unfortunately, to neither, not to someone from the military, not to someone that has already stole, or allowed to, not to someone who associates with people that care less about social needs. I am cynical, but at least not naive to believe that Humala is our savior
Javier,
While it is true that statistics are sometimes misleading, “what we see” can also be highly misleading. Few of us have the divine ability to see every sparrow fall; each of us lives in a non-random sample of experiencees. So statistics are useful in revealing what we have not seen, and what we see is useful in verifying the statistics. When they disagree, we need to seek a resolution; CEPAL’s analysis is only one possibility but there is wide consensus on a couple of points:
1. South American economies — with a couple of exceptions — show an extreme disparity. On any measure of disparity: rich vs. poor; rich vs. middle-class; middle-class vs. poor.
2. This sort of disparity is both politically and economically unviable.
It’s politically unviable because the breach in living standards creates enormous resentment; we’ve seen the results of that so it’s not necessary to elaborate. It’s economically unviable because inequality is a drag on economic development: it inhibits the development of the local market; it creates transactional costs (public services such as health care and security); and it is generally a waste of human potential.
I definitely agree that wishful thinking is not good enough, including the wishful thinking of those who think that things can just continue as they are and that wealth will somehow magically redistribute itself.
Finally, you may not have much respect for the ability of poor peruvians to decide what will be best for them, but you cannot stop anyone from thinking the way they think — all you can do is suppress their right to express their demands politically. And we know where that leads.
There is a demand to satisfy unfulfilled basic needs, and it is a legitimate demand. It has gone unheeded for far too long, and is every time more urgent. Talking about chickens trivialises the issue; the issue is expressed in an infant mortality rate two to three times as high in the poorest quintile than in the richest quintile; in the lack of education and health care in poor communities; in the absence of clean water and adequate sanitation.
So someone has to pay. Either the poor continue to pay, resentfully, with their own lives, or the more well-off invest a part of their wealth in the social infrastructure — and there has been little indication that the latter have any willingness to do so.
Rici,
Your magic with words and numbers is awe inspiring. Add to that your unquestionable wit.
I believe we should combat ideas and not personalize them with assumptions, but in oder not tobe misinterpret.
Peruvians are smart, and I respect our wisdom dearly, as I have lived in the Andes and have enjoyed the hospitality of the Andean and the Amazonian, (once they get to the city things change though) but limitation and misinformation needs to be considered.
I disagree with Rici in stating ‘someone has to pay’. That is not creative and leads to blood and confrontation, BTW I am opposed to violence in the 2006, I am OK with it happening as a way of social change maybe until 1960. What makes the difference for me is the development of communication technology.
I believe that a better option is creating wealthness prioritzing the most impoverished areas, not charity or Robin Hood attitudes from ‘Papa Gobierno’. Make people independent and control of their own destiny as oppose to hoping that Papa Gobierno takes from some to give to others.
The rich people will just leave.
I was shocked when I realized how much money Velasco paid to the IPC for the petrolum wells,
This part of my post was not sent sorry.
My point was that we all have different assessments of Peruvian reality. Statistics are good, as long as they are cited with their problems and limitations, and certainly CEPAL has its critics. We also need to agree on what we called middle class, what we call ‘reactionary’ as I was recently labeled. We are not in the 60’s anymore, and I have no pretensions but to point out the possiblity that we may be talking using different semantics.
From my perspective, Peru is not a country that rejects trade, bootstrap capitalism, hard work, or a frontier mentality that crafts out of hardship somthing viable, even if what results for the small scale persons in the informal sector or the small agro producers is not opulence. The movement against the TLC, which one commentator called insulting to the U.S., is not really so if one notes that the qualifying words of the movement is “TLC ASI NO!” Even the congressmen who some might consider to be the mostly clearly left leaning JDC has said that only a person without wits would reject an opportunity to expand trade but he also qualified that the manner in which the current arrangement is occurring is not democratic in terms of taking into account the needs and great disadvatages or detriments that the smaller scale producers will face in the current trade agreement.
MVL made a famous stand against AGP and APRA when they ran amuck and finally nationalized the bank’s the discourse that emerged was one that cast state control as authoritarian. In this re-emergence of the right MVL was even accompanied by peruvians of the smaller scale enterprises, and infromals. Now the new challenge is to put in check the quasi democracy of peru’s wealthiest sectors, who in the phenomena that is the TLC, have shown their own authoritarian tendencies. Not ones that are the workings of party’s or dictators but rather one that is the product of better financed and represented interest over that of sectors who lack such effective representation.
The irony is that it was people like MVL and Fernando DeSoto (FD) who championed the market, and now that many peruvians have bought into it, even if in a small scale and improvised manner, now might be left out of a necessary debate about a trade agreemet that will determine their plight in the following years. Now it is those same ideological champions such as MVL who have no answer to moves made by the powerful sectors who act in an undemocratic manner towards informal and small agro market adherents. Rather, the president and his large scale export led backers now move autocrtically, and in doing so have shown which sectors of society the market was made to benefit.
If the new generations of peruvians ekeing an existance that is not hostile to the benefits of market economies is to be in the long term more that mere words, elite authoritariansm to the benefit of export led giants and their lobbies and lackies has to be challenged for the partisan farce that it is!
Lee–> Poole Deborah y Renique Gerardo “Peru Time of Fear” capitulo 5 pagina 140 y Notas Finales en los paginas 204-205.
Mucha suerte!
Javier,
I think you misunderstood me, which was probably my fault. I had forgotten the idiomatic use of “someone has to pay” in English.
I meant it literally. That is, someone has to cough off the money to pay for clinics, to pay for schools, to pay for clean water and sewage disposal and municipal infrastructure. It’s not enough to “generate wealth” — although you do need to do that — you also have to distribute some of it in services for the people.
I’m not taking sides in this election, at least not in public — although I live in Perú, I’m not a Peruvian citizen — and in any event I don’t find any of the offers on the table very attractive, which is unfortunate. I thought after writing that spiel that you might think I was pushing for Humala, which I’m not.
All I’m saying is that the Perú of today is the result of systematic neglect of social infrastructure over a long time. Had those with wealth and power been less mesquina over those decades, things would be a lot better. But, as in the rest of South America, they (aided and abetted by foreign capital) simply lived high off the hog, leaving the vast majority to scratch out whatever living they could. So a certain amount of resentment is understandable, whether or not it is likely to improve the situation.
So I hear people in Miraflorina cafes saying the same thing you do, that Humala’s support is uneducated, that they don’t know what is good for them. And I ask, then why didn’t you spend more money on schools? How do you expect people to be educated if you deny them access to education? Would it really have hurt your lifestyle that much to pay a bit more in taxes, to create a state that actually provided services instead of shifting money from one bank account to another?
It’s not too late, I don’t think. Perú is an amazing country, full of wonderful people who really do want to make the best lives possible; that’s certainly been my experience. I don’t believe that they want a “handout”: but schools and hospitals and drinkable water are not a handout; they are the fabric which holds a healthy society together.