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Peruvian Presidential Politics
| Article
# : |
16174 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1989 |
2,218 Words |
| Author
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David Brock
David Brock, a senior editor at Insight magazine, recently
returned from Peru. |
In next spring's presidential elections, Peruvian voters will face the most stark--and certainly the most interesting--choice they have ever had in electing a new president. As it is now shaping up, the contest will pit a popular Marxist former mayor of Lima against novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, the leader of a nascent Center-Right coalition. The outcome of this high-stakes battle has the potential to shape the future course not only of troubled Peru but of the entire region as well.
On a continent famous for foreign debt, bloated state bureaucracies, entrenched corruption, economic stagnations, and political instability, Peru has the dubious distinction of having all of the problems of its neighbors, in spades. A bloodthirsty Maoist insurrection is increasing its terrorist operations throughout the country, forging ties with Peru's notorious drug lords to undermine the country's fragile political institutions.
The economy is on the brink of collapse: Inflation for the second half of 1988 was 9,000 percent and more than 20,000 percent for its last four months; the treasury is $300 million in the red, and unemployment is at a record high. The minimum wage is only 50 cents a day, which will not even buy a bottle of beer in the hyperinflated economy. Shortages of wheat, sugar, milk, rice, and cooking oil are rampant. According to a recent poll, two-thirds of Peruvian 14-17 years old wish they had been born elsewhere.
Much of the country blames Alan Garcia Perez, the young, populist, nationalist Peruvian president who took office in 1985 amid great hope, but who has proved unequal to the task. Garcia's American Popular Revolutionary Alliance
... (1999 of 13511 Characters)
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