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Council On Hemispheric Affairs
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Monitoring
Political, Economic and Diplomatic Issues Affecting the Western Hemisphere
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Memorandum to the Press 04.61
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Monday, 20 September, 2004
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Word Count: 2650
Welcome to Washington, Mr.
Peruvian President
• President Toledo, you will arrive to Washington carrying the dubious distinction of being one of the America’s most unpopular leaders since Latin America’s re-democratization commenced a decade ago. As of
September 12, your popularity stood at a miniscule 14% while your disapproval
rate has hovered around 85%.
• Your continued deference to the international lending agencies such
as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, have failed to translate
into any real change in the socioeconomic status of the average Peruvian and
has only further institutionalized the antipathetic policies of your disgraced,
corrupt predecessor, Alberto Fujimori.
• Mr. President, you have all but completely reneged on your campaign
pledge to create new jobs and obstinately have based your economic policy on
unpopular privatization and market strategies as well as favoring
export-oriented industries that may satisfy foreign interests but doom your
constituents to continued un- and under-employment, poverty, along with a skidding
standard of living.
• You shamelessly took advantage of your indigenous ethnicity and empty
populist rhetoric to lure Peruvians into voting for you, but subsequently
turned your back on them once you became their president.
•Despite promises to the contrary, you have demonstrated a lack of
political will to clean up Peru’s corrupt and ineffective judicial system. Instead, you
proudly point to your supposed hard stance on criminals, when all you can come
up with is the continued unjust imprisonment of American ex-college student
Lori Berenson. The Bush administration acquiescence
to Berenson’s years of captivity is one of the most
unprincipled components of its deeply flawed Latin American policies, with the
same being true of the Clinton presidency.
• Your Peru Posible
(PP) party and its governing coalition, have been disgraced by allegations of
corruption and nepotism among your innermost circle and are now being denounced
daily by a new opposition majority in Congress and persistent popular protests.
• Your uncontested incompetence has led
numerous political opponents and civic groups to call for your resignation
before your term ends, thus threatening the country’s democratic foundations
and possibly adding to a dangerous trend of extra-constitutional regime change
throughout Latin America.
• President Toledo, you have mortally
wounded your presidency and Peru.
When running for president of Peru, Alejandro Toledo sold himself to his audience as a son of
the masses who personally had triumphed over the poverty and limited
opportunities available in his homeland and who returned to the country of his
birth to lead it to national revitalization. The one time shoe-shine boy, turned Stanford graduate and later a World Bank
consultant, showered the Peruvian electorate with the promise of an economic
recovery that would create thousands of new jobs and provide the state with the
resources needed to expand and improve upon the nation’s anemic health care and
education systems. He looked Peruvians straight in the eye and told them that
he identified with their plight because as a cholo (a
colloquial term for native Peruvians) he faced the humiliation and desperation
they were accustomed to and thus had their interests seared in his memory. Toledo convinced enough voters to win the presidency in a run-off
election against former president Alan Garcia on June 7, 2001, but promptly came down with a severe case of political
amnesia.
For the last three years, Toledo has further institutionalized the structural adjustment
programs advocated by his former colleagues at the World Bank and the IMF. He
has become a hero in the eyes of international investors at the expense of Peru’s poor majority. His economic and social policies expanded
the gap between the country’s haves and have-nots and have alienated his
embittered fellow countrymen, even managing to cause many of them to look back
with nostalgia to the mendacious and murderous ex-dictator Fujimori.
In fact, a poll conducted by CPI, a Peruvian public-opinion firm, and released
on August 24, shockingly showed that 18.1 % of Peruvians would vote for
ex-dictator Alberto Fujimori if the elections were
held on that day. Toledo does not appear to be very troubled with his 10% approval
rating, for he has yet to offer his critics or supporters the possibility of
initiating a dialogue regarding his intractable and immensely unpopular
economic policies.
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PARA LEER LA VERSION EN ESPAÑOL OPRIMIR AQUÍ
This analysis was prepared
by Gabriel Espinosa Gonzalez, COHA Research Associate.
Additional research
provided by Abigail Jones
September 20 , 2004
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