What kind of message does it send Hugo Chavez when the people of Peru will reject his heavily endorsed candidate for a proven failure? The kind that demands a halt to the Bolivarian march toward a pan-American state that Chavez seems to be pursuing.
At least that's how I read the recent elections in Peru. How else can one explain the Peruvian voters' willingness to send Alan Garcia back to Lima as their president? Serving as president from 1985 to 1990, Garcia managed to increase inflation by more than 7,000 percent, dramatically increase the number of Peruvians living under poverty levels, wreck the banking sector with an attempt to nationalize it, and stir the Shining Path insurgency. On top of this, he was forced to flee the country in 1992 amid accusations of brutality against suspect rebel peasants and the embezzlement of millions of dollars. It is safe to say that no reasonable political scientist would have predicted Garcia's reelection 14 years later.
How, then, did Garcia defeat Ollanta Humala and secure his second chance? It seems that it may have been a combination of memory loss on the part of those Peruvians who had to suffer through Garcia's first term and the strong resistance to a candidate so closely linked to a powerful pseudo-dictator–I like to think that it is more of the latter. Not only did Humala secure Chavez's strong endorsement, but his policies also reflected Chavez's general antagonistic approach to private industry and the middle class. If anything, the election demonstrates that Peru is hesitant to support populist policies again, due in large part to the populist failures of Garcia's first term in office. However, the defeat of Humala may also represent the patriotic resentment of an outsider's attempts to dominate Peru's government. If this is the case, there may still be hope for a Latin America that seems to be increasingly dominated by the influence of one man.
Whatever secured Garcia's second chance, it leaves the future looking brighter than usual for Peru. Garcia inherits a much healthier economy from President Toledo than he left in 1990, and it seems that he has studied economics during his 16 year hiatus: Garcia has abandoned the reckless spending and populist policies of his past in favor of policies that promise fiscal prudence and increased foreign investment. But more importantly, Peru has demonstrated autonomy where other Latin American countries have not. And in doing so, I think Peru will benefit from the lessons that Alan Garcia had to learn the hard way–through the humiliation of failure and defeat.
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