 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 8 - 14 June 2000 Issue No. 485 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 8 - 14 June 2000 Issue No. 485
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Standing his ground
By Hisham El-Naggar
You can say one thing for Peru's Alberto Fujimori: he doesn't take no for an answer.
The Organisation of American States (OAS) all but called him a cheat. The United States warned that it would not recognise the parody of an election that reinstated him in power for a third term of doubtful constitutionality. His opponent, Alejandro Toledo, threatened civil disobedience. But Fujimori went blithely ahead, declaring himself the winner of Peru's contentious presidential election.
Neighbouring states, struggling to dissociate themselves from anything that might cast a shadow on their young democracies, have watched on nervously. Decades ago, men who wanted to rule unchallenged in Latin America did so by seizing power and not letting go until forced to do so. But military dictatorship is now decidedly out of fashion. For one thing, there is no Cold War going on, encouraging Americans to look the other way as "friendly" Latin dictators provide training for torture, repression and other "anti-subversive measures" through the infamous "School of the Americas," where many a military strongman served his apprenticeship.
Nowadays, it is fashionable to be "democratic" -- or to seem so, at any rate. But whatever else Fujimori may be considered, he is hardly a conventional politician. A risk-taker by instinct, he once challenged the world and got away with it. In 1992, he staged what in Latin American lore came to be known as the auto-golpe ("self-coup"), temporarily closing Congress and ruling by decree. In 1997 he pulled off yet another implausible feat, storming the Japanese Embassy in Lima and liberating the hostages who had been held by a guerrilla group there for months. And if Fujimori has learned something from his experience, it is that taking risks often pays.
Who is Alberto Fujimori, and just how does his on-the-brink approach keep him in power? Peru is no banana republic; no Hollywood parody of a Latin state, where uniformed strongmen bark orders and guerrilla leaders (more often than not with a bushy Castro-like beard) galvanise mobs into action.
Once the seat of the Inca Empire, Peru dazzled the Spanish conquistadores with its fabled wealth and advanced civilisation. Precisely because their sense of belonging to a superior civilisation was so strong, the conquered Incas were subjected by their Spanish colonial rulers to a system of slave labour that dangerously resembled genocide. Incas perished by the thousands as they toiled to extract the gold that filled the coffers of Imperial Spain. The Spanish language was enriched by the phrase vale un Peru ("It's worth a Peru," meaning that something is worth a fortune), but humanity was impoverished by the slaughter of a brilliant civilisation.
The Incas lived on. They embraced Catholicism, adopted Spanish as a second language and intermarried with Spanish colonists. Independence found the Indians every bit as poor and subjugated as they had been under Spanish rule, but Peru developed a proud identity that drew on the faded glory of the Incas.
Immigrants -- mostly from Europe, but also from the East -- came by the hundreds of thousands and combined their aspirations for a better life with a worthy idealism. As Peruvians became more and more convinced of the special status of their country as heir to the Incas, the Incas' descendants were increasingly forgotten by the country's new elite.
Fujimori belongs to just that elite. His parents came from Japan, perhaps not the most usual source of immigrants to Latin America, but Latin America has a melting pot tradition that puts even the North Americans to shame. (Can you visualise the son of Japanese immigrants in the White House -- or, for that matter, an Arab, like Argentina's Menem?) Fujimori is accepted by his countrymen as very Peruvian indeed. His nickname, "El Chino" (the standard name for people of Asian stock) is intended as a term of affection, certainly not as an insult.
In 1990 Fujimori beat his far better-known rival, the novelist Vargas Llosa, in what were probably quite clean presidential elections. Llosa, despite his past sympathy with the left, had moved much closer to the right, in the manner of the Latin elite in the post-Cold War era. Fujimori preferred to cast himself as a maverick -- and in this, at least, he proved as good as his word.
Intensely pragmatic, Fujimori followed an improvised strategy as he struggled against the two problems crippling Peru: an armed insurrection that was destroying the fabric of the state and the massive debt burden that was sinking its economy. Having gained power without a party of his own, Fujimori couldn't expect much support from Congress for his ad hoc remedies. This drove him to the first successful gamble of his career: the auto-golpe, which gave him absolute power long enough to launch a largely successful war against insurrectionists and push through the economic measures he thought necessary.
The measures he opted for raised no eyebrows in Washington: privatisations, privatisations and more privatisations. In the circumstances, the US was inclined not to protest too much -- a silence that discredited the US in Latin eyes. But if the suspension of democracy was temporary, Fujimori clearly doesn't think of it as such.
He can certainly point to some impressive successes to validate his methods: the insurrection was crushed and there has been considerable economic growth as foreign investors flocked to take advantage of the opportunities privatisations afforded. Yes, there is talk of corruption, bribing the poor with handouts and authoritarianism, reinforced by the undue power exercised by the Secret Service. But, Fujimori's supporters argue, a man's got to do what a man's got to do.
Fujimori has combined a very traditional authoritarian approach with an extraordinarily pragmatic strategy. His single ambition has been to hold on to power. Nothing is more indicative of Fujimori's pragmatism than his transformation from Mr Privatisation (that is to say, a man of the nineties who could count on tacit support from Washington) to the practitioner of an almost obsolete personality cult. His supporters argue that he can still count on the support of part of the establishment and most of the poor. Who cares if the US now thinks he is anti-democratic?
If it were that simple, Fujimori's problems would already be over. The "poor" are, after all, much more numerous than the middle class in Peru. If they backed him whole-heartedly, Fujimori would have no need of brinkmanship, let alone cheating, to secure 50 per cent of all votes in the run-off election he grudgingly conceded to.
Alejandro Toledo has emerged as Fujimori's most credible opponent. A highly-educated man of mestizo (mixed Indian and European) stock, he has worked as a consultant for the World Bank -- hardly a revolutionary, one would say. Toledo ran a more than competent first-round campaign against seemingly hopeless odds: Fujimori monopolised access to the media and, according to OAS observers, there was so much ballot-box stuffing by Fujimori's supporters that total votes counted exceeded those eligible to vote by over a million. Fujimori scored slightly under 50 per cent in the first round.
The OAS observers found evidence of continuing irregularities in the election process and insisted that, even assuming goodwill on the part of the government, they did not feel all the irregularities could be remedied by 28 May, the date set for the second round. They suggested a delay of at least two weeks. Fujimori did not hesitate to up the ante and ordered the elections to go ahead as planned. Toledo, convinced that Fujimori would not allow him to win, withdrew and called on his supporters to boycott the election.
The election was held all the same, and Fujimori contentedly posed as winner, having won 72 per cent of valid votes against Toledo's 24 per cent -- even though Toledo had withdrawn. Nearly a third of the votes were blank and invalid. If one counts the blank ones as votes against Fujimori, then El Chino can be said to have scored a bare 51 per cent of all votes.
It doesn't look like Fujimori will have much peace during his third term. Demonstrations on a very wide scale are challenging the validity of the result. The OAS and the US have made clear that they will not recognise the result of the election. Fujimori is gambling that internal and external protests will die down after a while. Toledo thinks otherwise, and the threat of sanctions against Peru -- or, at least, the likelihood of Peru becoming a pariah -- appear to strengthen his argument.
So it is to be war. Too bad for Peru, which has staged an impressive recovery, thanks not to any one individual, but to the sacrifices of its people. The longer the standoff persists, the more difficult life will be for most Peruvians, be they supporters or opponents of the regime.
