Daniel Garcia

How did this happen to Peru?

Posted on May 24th, 2011 by danielgarcia.
Categories: Uncategorized.

We are less than 2 weeks away from the Peruvian Presidential elections. Sunday June 5’th either Ollanta Humala or Keiko Fujimori will win the hard fought battle to reach the most powerful job in the country.

Peru’s weak governmental institutions and frail economy have seen a surge in the past 10 years thanks to high copper and metal prices. Implementation of Free Trade agreements has skyrocketed exports from 8% of Gross GDP to an impressive 17% of GDP. Let’s keep in mind mineral prices have also skyrocketed, so ignoring copper and gold, exports have actually risen more than 250% every 5 years.

Peru has a major problem in its growth: Division.

Social classes are so divided in the country that higher and lower ectelons of society react in drastic ways. Not only do extreme segments of the population understand change differently, but citizens within the same higher ectelon have also found themselves changing positions and innacurately portraying reality.

What does this mean?

Higher and middle income neghborhods in Peru account for 30% of the voting population. In years past this sector has consistently been liberal, democratic, open, fluid, and attached. This 30% block of people voted the same way. In 1992-93 this group of people supported a self-coup by Alberto Fujimori. Many now like to attack the self-coup and consider Fujimori a “dictator” but they forget that a survey by IPSOS in 1993 given by Alfredo Torres, part of the peruvian consular team in Washington D.C. at the time, actually gave Fujimori’s self-coup a 75% support percentage with a margin of error of 1%. 75% of the country supported the self-coup. Peru was under constant threat by the MRTA terrorist organization and Shining Path, a deadly terrorism gang lead by Abimael Guzman.

Many again like to point Fujimori as the creator of corruption in Peru but forget that the country was in shambles and was already so corrupted that no police commisary had any of the necessary equipment to deal with emergencies or attacks. The army had no effective weapons. Lawyers and magistrate judges were killed in the streets. Dogs were hanging from light posts. Buildings were blown up. The term “COCHEBOMBA” was extremly common and appeared on the news EVERYDAY. Do people forget this?

Fast forward 19 years and today’s election has a convoluted scenario of Keiko Fujimori, Alberto Fujimoris’ daughter against Ollanta Humala, a leftist disgruntled soldier kicked out of the military for acts against the will of the army and the commander in chief. Keiko Fujimori is in fact surrounded by some of the same people her father was surrounded by and Ollanta Humala is also surrounded by some unique characters. One of them is Carlos Tapia, and ex Shining Path sympathizer who frequently visited Abimael Guzman, considered the country’s most deadly criminal and the icon of terrorism in Peru.

So how did this happen?

The corrupt Fujimori regime that defeated terrorism now faced against an apparent corrupt Humala campaign financed by unknown sources and surrounded by controversial leftist individuals.

What will happen to Peru on June 5’th?

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