{"id":1327,"date":"2006-05-31T18:59:55","date_gmt":"2006-06-01T02:59:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/2006\/05\/31\/financial-times-bush-administration-and-its-unlikely-ally\/"},"modified":"2006-05-31T18:59:55","modified_gmt":"2006-06-01T02:59:55","slug":"financial-times-bush-administration-and-its-unlikely-ally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/2006\/05\/31\/financial-times-bush-administration-and-its-unlikely-ally\/","title":{"rendered":"Financial Times: Bush administration and its Unlikely Ally"},"content":{"rendered":"

Latin America\u2019s leaders have failed to stand up to Venezuela\u2019s Hugo Ch\u00e1vez and his allies, to the irritation of the US. But if Alan Garc\u00eda wins the presidential elections in Peru on Sunday, the Bush administration may find itself with an unlikely regional ally….<\/em>Bush administration crosses fingers for Garc\u00eda victory<\/a>, by Hal Weitzman in Lima, Financial Times, June 1 2006 00:07<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bush administration crosses fingers for Garc\u00eda victory<\/a>
\nBy Hal Weitzman in Lima
\nFinancial Times, June 1 2006 00:07<\/strong>
\nIt was billed as a clash of the titans. On one side were Hugo Ch\u00e1vez, the fiery Venezuelan president, and his prot\u00e9g\u00e9 Evo Morales, the Bolivian leader, who a few days earlier had announced the nationalisation of his country\u2019s gas sector. On the other side were Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva and N\u00e9stor Kirchner, the more moderate left-leaning presidents of Brazil and Argentina, the countries most affected by Bolivia\u2019s move.
\nBut the expected confrontation at a summit on the issue last month ended in a round of back-slapping and an endorsement of Mr Morales\u2019s move.
\nIt was an example of how the region\u2019s leaders have failed to challenge Mr Ch\u00e1vez and his allies \u2013 to the irritation of the US, the main target of the Venezuelan leader\u2019s outbursts. But if Alan Garc\u00eda proves the opinion polls right by winning the presidential elections in Peru on Sunday, the Bush administration may find itself with an unlikely regional ally \u2013 at least when it comes to firing verbal barbs back at Caracas.
\nMr Ch\u00e1vez has weighed in heavily in Peru\u2019s election, coming out strongly in favour of Ollanta Humala, the radical nationalist candidate, and attacking Mr Garc\u00eda as a \u201cswine\u201d and \u201cscoundrel\u201d known for his \u201cstealing and demagoguery\u201d.
\nIn April, Peru withdrew its ambassador to Caracas in protest at the Venezuelan leader\u2019s interference.
\nMr Garc\u00eda has worked hard to keep Mr Ch\u00e1vez involved, a tactic that has helped to divert attention from his record as Peru\u2019s president between 1985 and 1990, when the economy collapsed and a guerrilla campaign by the Maoist Shining Path gained ground.
\nBarely a day has gone by in which Mr Garc\u00eda has not lashed out at the Venezuelan leader, whom he calls a \u201cdictator\u201d who acts like a \u201cCaribbean petty king\u201d.
\nThat may be sweet music to the White House. \u201cWashington complains that South American leaders who don\u2019t like Ch\u00e1vez say so privately but not publicly,\u201d says Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue think-tank in Washington. \u201c[Colombian President Alvaro] Uribe\u2019s been sur-prisingly restrained, Lula\u2019s been restrained. But Garc\u00eda has few qualms about standing up to Ch\u00e1vez.\u201d
\nWithout outspoken allies in Latin America, the US has felt forced to respond to Mr Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s barbs. Last month, President George W. Bush said he was \u201cconcerned about the erosion of democracy\u201d in Venezuela and Bolivia.
\nMr Garc\u00eda\u2019s attacks on the Venezuelan leader have been largely aimed at boosting his own popularity, prompted by polls that show about 70 per cent of Peruvians reject Mr Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s attempts to influence the election. Mr Garc\u00eda also has a long-standing personal resentment: in 1992 Mr Ch\u00e1vez, then an army officer, launch-ed a failed coup against Carlos Andr\u00e9s P\u00e9rez, the populist Venezuelan president and ally of Mr Garc\u00eda.
\nMr Garc\u00eda may also sniff an opportunity to project himself on to the world stage as a left-of-centre alternative. \u201cThere\u2019s definitely some ideological space there that Alan could move into,\u201d says Luis Benavente of the University of Lima.
\nDaniel Kerner, a political risk consultant at the Eurasia group in New York, says Mr Garc\u00eda may well be tempted to regain the stature he enjoyed in the early days of his first presidency. \u201cGarc\u00eda tries to present himself as a regional figure to earn some points with international leaders,\u201d he says.
\nBut it would be stretching matters to see Mr Garc\u00eda as the new best US friend in the region. He won continent-wide acclaim in his first stint as president by attempting to nationalise foreign banks and restricting debt payments.
\nMoreover, his Apra party has a strong tradition of resistance to US influence. \u201cI am anti-imperialist,\u201d he said recently. \u201cI don\u2019t like the American presence in Iraq and I don\u2019t like Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s presence with his oil and his money in Peru.\u201d
\nMr Garc\u00eda has not lost his populist streak, and his agenda is likely to clash with Washington\u2019s on several issues.
\nHe has attacked the US-sponsored programme to eradicate coca, the raw material for cocaine. He has been at pains to avoid saying he would approve the trade deal Peru recently signed with the US, hinting that he may try to revise it. Taking a cue from Mr Humala, he has also attacked \u201cneo-liberalism\u201d and suggested he would revise some contracts with foreign investors.
\n\u201cThe US would be wise not to depend too much [on] and not to expect too much from Garc\u00eda,\u201d says Mr Shifter. \u201cHe may stand up to Ch\u00e1vez but he will diverge on other issues. It doesn\u2019t mean that Garc\u00eda embraces the US agenda.\u201d
\nIn any case, Mr Garc\u00eda\u2019s first task will be not to throw his weight around internationally but to rise above begin to rebuild his disastrous record in Peru.
\nAs Eric Farnsworth of the Council of the Americas in Washington notes: \u201cThere is an opportunity there to play a more international role, but . . . in order for a President Garc\u00eda to do so, he\u2019ll have to show that he can govern at home first.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1305,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7954],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-international-context"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}