{"id":369,"date":"2006-01-21T20:54:29","date_gmt":"2006-01-22T04:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/2006\/01\/21\/lourdes-flores-on-the-campaign-trail\/"},"modified":"2006-01-21T20:54:29","modified_gmt":"2006-01-22T04:54:29","slug":"lourdes-flores-on-the-campaign-trail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/2006\/01\/21\/lourdes-flores-on-the-campaign-trail\/","title":{"rendered":"Lourdes Flores on the Campaign Trail"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maxwell A. Cameron
\nJanuary 21, 2006
\n<\/strong>
\nA note in La Rep\u00fablica provided advance notice of a walk with Lourdes Flores through the working class district of Independencia, in the northern cone of Lima. We grabbed a cab and arrived at the meeting place a few minutes before the walk was to begin at 2:45 pm. At first, we could see no sign of any campaign activity as we strolled along Avenida Tupac Amaru until, at last, we spotted a couple of late model SUVs\u2014the shiniest cars on the street. They proved to be the advance crew.
\nWe loitered for a while, chatting with journalists and members of Flores\u2019 entourage while waiting for the presidential candidate. Finally, a campaign bus arrived carrying a group of supporters, followed by a large silver SUV. We formed a caravan and headed toward the hills, arriving at the end of a paved street in the neighborhood Tupac Amaru Payet. Flores emerged from her car and was immediately surrounded by enthusiastic supporters, including congressional candidates Lourdes Alcorta, Pepe Kleinberg, and Gaby P\u00e9rez del Solar.
\n\"IMG_0445.jpg\"
\nPhoto: M.A. Cameron
\nSomeone offered a glass of chicha, which Flores accepted with pleasure. From the sidelines, a couple of women from the barrio called for Flores to speak. One shouted \u201cLourdes, don\u2019t forget the poor.\u201d But the candidate did not stop to speak at that point. The plan was to move on foot along dirt paths carved by usage around a hillside densely covered by ramshackle and precarious houses, some made of matt, some wood, and the more solid ones of brick. Some of Flores\u2019 entourage were unimpressed. One referred pejoratively to the neighborhood as \u201cun asiento bien telara\u00f1a\u201d (in local slang, a very poor settlement).
\n\"IMG_0459.jpg\"
\nPhoto: M.A. Cameron
\nAs the entourage moved through the neighborhood, the crowd swelled. Some were curious, others genuinely supportive. One onlooker said she supported the candidate of Uni\u00f3n Nacional because she is a woman. Why was that important? \u201cWomen think better than men\u201d she said, they take care of the household economy. \u201cMen work hard, but they don\u2019t distribute.\u201d Another bystander expressed similar views. \u201cA woman should have the opportunity,\u201d she said. \u201cThere have been so many men elected and they have done nothing. Women are more intuitive in many ways.\u201d She particularly liked Flores because of her honesty. An elderly woman approached us to say she hoped Flores would improve education, particularly civic education and vocational training.
\n\"IMG_0462.jpg\"
\nPhoto: M.A. Cameron
\nWhen we emerged from the narrow dirt paths of the barrio back onto paved streets, Flores stopped to speak with the press. The crowd was hushed as the candidate took questions from the media. At one point a water balloon was tossed into the crowd, either by someone seeking to make a point or just for amusement.
\n\"IMG_0470.jpg\"
\nPhoto: M.A. Cameron
\nWhat is Missing in this Picture?
\nLourdes Flores, unlike Valentin Paniagua, gives the impression of wanting the presidency. She has a reputation for being a good listener, and her public statements are coherent and intelligent. Moreover, we were able to observe enough spontaneous expressions of support from onlookers to believe that her support base outside the affluent districts of Lima is real, especially among women. Consistent with her low negative ratings, we saw no clear expressions of hostility from the people in Tupac Amaru Payet.
\nYet Flores and her supporters looked more than a little out of place in this working class, mestizo, barrio. One member of Flores\u2019 entourage said she emerged from a similar walk so covered in dust that she had to take off her clothes in her garden before entering her house.
\nHow deep is the connection between Flores and her potential supporters? The candidate was not met by local organizing committees or leaders, nor given a stage on which to speak directly to the local folk. If there were local organizing committees, or grassroots leaders involved, they were given no prominence. In the absence of such connections with the community, Tupac Amaru Payet seemed to serve as a stage for a public appearance designed to reinforce Flores\u2019 image in the media as someone concerned with the plight of the poor. The inauthenticity of the event was made all the more dramatic by the contrast between the white, middle class supporters of UN, who were bused into the barrio, and the poor, cholo inhabitants of Tupac Amaru Payet who seemed not to be linked to the candidate in an organized way.
\n\"IMG_0455.jpg\"
\nPhoto: M.A. Cameron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maxwell A. Cameron January 21, 2006 A note in La Rep\u00fablica provided advance notice of a walk with Lourdes Flores through the working class district of Independencia, in the northern cone of Lima. We grabbed a cab and arrived at the meeting place a few minutes before the walk was to begin at 2:45 pm. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1305,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7961,7951,7952],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analysis-opinion","category-political-parties","category-women-and-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369","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=369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}