{"id":825,"date":"2006-04-05T12:27:20","date_gmt":"2006-04-05T20:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/2006\/04\/05\/financial-times-on-the-future-of-democracy-in-peru\/"},"modified":"2006-04-05T12:27:20","modified_gmt":"2006-04-05T20:27:20","slug":"financial-times-on-the-future-of-democracy-in-peru","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/2006\/04\/05\/financial-times-on-the-future-of-democracy-in-peru\/","title":{"rendered":"Financial Times on the Future of Democracy in Peru"},"content":{"rendered":"

Humala fans fears of \u2018coup with a democratic face\u2019<\/a>. By Hal Weitzman in Tacna, Peru, Financial Times<\/strong>
\n“Humala’s talk fans fears of ‘coup with a democratic face’ in Peru The presidential frontrunner is a former army officer playing to the nation’s affection for authoritarian leaders, reports Hal Weitzman.”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Humala fans fears of \u2018coup with a democratic face\u2019<\/a>
\nBy Hal Weitzman in Tacna, Peru
\nPublished: April 4 2006 21:42
\nFinancial Times<\/strong>
\nOllanta Humala\u2019s supporters in Tacna, Peru\u2019s southernmost city, are in festive mood as they wait for their leader to speak. The air is filled with confetti and balloons, and a woman dressed as a red-and-white cooking pot \u2013 the symbol of Mr Humala\u2019s nationalist party \u2013 is dancing to the music of a brass band.
\nThe first round of voting in Peru\u2019s presidential election is not until Sunday but the crowd is already celebrating in anticipation of a resounding victory for Mr Humala, who leads the polls by a comfortable margin.
\nBut when Mr Humala begins to speak, the mood quickly shifts to anger. \u201cThe powerful have stolen democracy from us,\u201d he shouts to indignant cheers. \u201cThey say I am \u2018anti-system\u2019. Well, \u2018the system\u2019 is the poverty of our people. So yes, I am the anti-system candidate. I am more than that \u2013 I am a rebel.\u201d
\nIt is this kind of rhetoric that has rung alarm bells in Peru over the future of democracy under a Humala government. Mario Vargas Llosa, the country\u2019s most famous writer and a former presidential candidate, rec ently gave warning that Peru might be about to experience \u201ca return to authoritarianism, to the systematic violation of human rights and a subjugated press\u201d. Marcial Ayaipoma, the president of Congress, said Mr Humala was plotting \u201ca coup d\u2019\u00e9tat with a democratic face\u201d.
\nFor much of its recent history Peru has alternated between dictatorship and democracy. It returned to democracy in 1980, but the election of Alberto Fujimori as president in 1990 signalled a more autocratic turn, with the dissolution of Congress in 1992.
\nMr Fujimori\u2019s \u201cauto-coup\u201d was wildly popular at the time, indicating a widespread contempt for democracy as practised in Peru. Since 2001, democratic institutions have functioned but remain fragile and deeply distrusted. President Alejandro Toledo is profoundly disliked. More than 70 per cent of Peruvians favour more authoritarian government, according to a recent United Nations study.
\nIn part, says Wilfredo Ardito of Lima\u2019s Catholic University, that is because historically Peru has had a string of much-loved authoritarian leaders \u201cwho were better than democratic governments in giving people tangible benefits\u201d.
\nIn Tacna, Mr Humala\u2019s speech tapped into a long tradition of revolutionary activity. Peru\u2019s struggle for independence began here in 1811, earning it the title of \u201cthe heroic city\u201d. When Chile occupied the city from 1883 to 1929, residents defied a ban by parading the Peruvian flag through the streets. In 1975 Tacna was the starting point for the coup that overthrew Juan Velasco Alvarado, the leftwing dictator whom Mr Humala venerates.
\nMr Humala\u2019s own emergence into the public arena occurred 75km away in Locumba, from where in 2000 the candidate, then a lieutenant colonel, launched a failed coup against former president Mr Fujimori. In January 2005 Mr Humala\u2019s younger brother led another abortive uprising in the southern highlands.
\nMuch of the fear about his candidacy is linked to his military background \u2013 including allegations of human rights abuses \u2013 and the idea that Mr Humala might turn into a \u201csoft dictator\u201d in the mould of Hugo Ch\u00e1vez, the Venezuelan leader who is also a former coup leader.
\nMr Humala has fanned those concerns by talk of reinvigorating the armed forces, promising to rewrite the constitution and threatening to dissolve Congress. He said last week that the future of Congress \u201cwould be in the hands of a constituent assembly, not mine\u201d but many see that as an attempt to centralise power.
\n\u201cHumala thinks that to govern is to be Napoleon,\u201d says Julio Cotler, a political analyst in Lima. \u201cHe\u2019s mimicking Bolivia and Venezuela, where the governments are using constituent assemblies to establish a monopoly on power.\u201d
\nFor some observers, the election has exposed divergent perceptions of what democracy means in a country where a small upper and middle class has benefited from impressive economic growth in recent years while half the population live on less than $2 (\u20ac1.60, \u00a31.10) a day and feel that the state has little to do with them.
\nProf Ardito points to Peru\u2019s tradition of social unrest to illustrate the importance of informal politics rather than elections. \u201cWhereas the state thinks in terms of representative demo cracy, the people understand democracy more as a participative process,\u201d he says. \u201cBut representative democracy is widely discredited.\u201d
\nMr Humala has sought to exploit that by promising to change the system in which \u201cpoliticians pay attention to the people only at election time\u201d and pledging to hold more referendums.
\n\u201cWe need to end the dictatorship of the rich and the powerful,\u201d says the presidential frontrunner. \u201cDemocracy in Peru is purely procedural and electoral. It\u2019s very weak in terms of institutions and citizenship.\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":[7959],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-quality-of-democracy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825","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=825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/peru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}