Peru had its run-off presidential election on Sunday and, as predicted, centrist ex-president Alan Garcia beat out fiery ex-military-coup-leader Ollanta Humala by a little under 10 percent, 55-45 or so.
In the past week I've probably asked 25 Peruvians what they think of the candidates and the political situation here. The most common response has been along the lines of "I don't like either of them but better to have something bad that you know than something potentially even worse that you don't know."
Garcia was president of Peru from 1985-1990 and presided over triple digit inflation, the rise of Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerillas, shrinking employment, and food insecurity in several regions of the country. Most people think he's somewhat improved with age, and won't repeat the same mistakes twice... hopefully. But no one's really that enthused about him. More people were more enthusiastic about Ollanta, the guy with the angry nationalistic rhetoric and the explicit or not-so-explicit (depending on whom you ask) connections to Bush-baiting Hugo Chavez, and also Lourdes Flores, the center-left female candidate who came in third in April's first round elections. But most Lourdes voters turned to Garcia on Sunday out of a combination of concerns that Humala would tend towards the dictatorial and capricious and that he would become a puppet of Chavez, a fear Garcia wisely played to his advantage in the final days leading up to the election, going so far as to say the vote was to be a choice between Peruvian autonomy and Peru becoming an outpost in Chavez's grandiose hemisphere-wide lefty schemes. This message struck a nerve, and lots of people I spoke with thought of the election as somewhat of a referendum on Peruvian national autonomy... bad move for Ollanta to not distance himself from Chavez earlier on, and a good lesson for Evo as he attempts to move his agenda forward in the face of a strong opposition bent on discrediting him as nothing more than Chavez's plaything.
But while US media are making a big to-do of Garcia's win as a blow to Venezuelan regional ambitions and the beginning of the end of the hemispheric tilt leftward (see this Washington Post article for example) I think that, as usual, the situation is much more complex and subtle. Peru's a diverse country. The coastal cities, the Andean spine, and the eastern Amazon all have distinct cultural, economic, and political currents that often run counter to one another. In the Andean, heavily indigenous departments of Ayacucho, Cusco, and Puno, for instance, Ollanta Humala won Sunday with huge majorities of 80% and higher. The Andean region in general, stretching from Colombia and Ecuador down through the spine of Peru and across the Bolivian altiplano, is experiencing a powerful cultural/political revival and a reassertion of indigenous identity that shows no sign of slowing down or weakening. Evo's MAS government in Bolivia... Occidental Petroleum's eviction from Ecuador... Ollanta Humala's unexpected rise and near-win in Peru. The Andean world is marching to the beat of its own drummer, and I wouldn't be surprised to see more political upheaval here in connection with issues of cultural identity, economics, and natural resources over the next several years. It's not Ollanta's failed bid for the presidency that marks the end of an important trend, but rather the very fact of his successful candidacy that marks the rising tide of indigenous identity politics throughout the region.
PS - I've been having lots of conversations about our faulty U.S. electoral system with Peruvians lately, who've mostly been incredulous and stupified about the dirty tricks and fraud republican operatives used to win in 2000 and 2004. I wish I had a spanish translation of this Rolling Stone Magazine exposé to pass around among people I meet down here! It would be much easier than having to explain it over and over again in agonizing, depressing detail. And for those of you who don't believe Bush stole Ohio (and the White House) in 2004, please read this article and get back to me.
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