PERU sell
THE WRITER Mario Vargas
Llosa, a champion of free enterprise and anti-Communism, has just experienced a colorful episode. While the polls predicted he would get more than 50% of the vote for president, he just edged ahead of an obscure candidate, the son of
Japanese immigrants,
Alberto Fujimori, who got
30% in the April 8 elections. T HE ELECTION CAMPAIGN was started by Vargas Llosa two years ago. The prominent writer had the help of the best public relations experts in the United States, and he spent millions to inundate the media.
All this labor crumbled in the space of a few hours, for the benefit of an unknown candidate, a political newcomer, Alberto
Fujimori.
Nonetheless, everything had indicated that Vargas Llosa would win the election, with the support of the extreme right
Frente Democratico (FREDEMO) coalition. The FREDEMO was made up of the two old parties that represent the ruling class in Peru, Acción Popular and the Partido Popular Cristiano, along with the movement formed by Vargas Llosa, "Libertad."
From one nightmare to another
Born out of the big bourgeoisie's revolt against the nationalization of the banks proposed in 1987 by outgoing president Alan García, FREDEMO presented itself as the alternative to the nightmare that Peru lived through under the aegis of the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA) 1. In denouncing the populist phrasemongering of APRA, Vargas Llosa tried to show that García was dragging Peru down into crisis with a "left" program. The writer's line was to try to put the responsibility for the hyperinflation (3,000% in 1989), unemployment and rampant corruption in the administration not only on APRA but on 26 the left as a whole. No political force was able to resist International Viewpoint #184 • May 7, 1990
FREDEMO's steamroller. The Peruvian people did not want to vote for APRA, which had starved them. It could no longer throw its votes to the left. The latter had gone through a period of internal warfare and divisions that led to its break ing up. Thus, its forces were split in the elections between the United Left and its former leader, Alfonso Barrantes, formed his own coalition, the Socialist
The events in East Europe and the defeat of the Sandinista front in Nicaragua certainly had an impact on the voters. Finally, the municipal governments run by the left had brought no substantial improvement in the lives of people and tarnished its image. It was in this context that Mario Vargas Llosa's candidacy emerged.
Peruvian voters tired of politicians
FREDEMO exerted itself to project a promise of "change." At the beginning, the voters looked sympathetically on Vargas Llosa's candidacy, because they were tired of "politicians." The writer tried to present himself as different, claiming to be "independent."
But the backing of the classic parties of the right (including the party of former president Belaunde Terry) for Libertad detracted from his image. What change could be expected from the old hands of the right? Then, the big capitalists gave their support to FREDEMO, spending millions on its propaganda.
At this point, Peruvians began looking for a "real" independent candidate, and they found "Cambio [Change] 90 and its standardbearer, Fujimori. He also talked about "technology" and promised "capital" to bail out Peru, like the FREDEMO
But he was careful not to give any hints of attacks on unemployment and the social gains of the masses.
APRA and the left, for their part, strove to expose FREDEMO's governmental plans, denouncing the arrogant speeches of Vargas Llosa, whose overconfidence led him to talk too bluntly. He made no bones about his intentions - economic "shock" treatement for the country, privatizing the national enterprises and firing half a million workers in this sector, abolishing security of employment, "regulating" the right to strike, splitting up the peasant communities, abolishing free education after the third year of high-school and so on.
Llosa spends millions on campaign
Most of all, Peruvians saw the millions the rich spent on this campaign in a coun try ravaged by hunger. That is what repelled them from Vargas Llosa and then attracted them to another candidate. The writer's public relations experts were unable to understand this phenomenon.
FREDEMO has accused Fjimori of not having any program. But APRA did not have any more of one when it took over the government in 1986. Moreover, Fujimori's line was more reassuring than that of the literary man. He did not want to privatize the nationalized sector, and he talked about social inequalities that stoked the fires of the Shining Path guerrillas and which had to be combatted.
Fujimori promised that education would remain free, that security of employment would be protected and, above all, that he was not going to apply any "shock" therapy to the Peruvian economy. This line reassured the Peruvian masses, but also some sections of the
ANCHO