Peru: President Alejandro Toledo

Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo received his doctorate from the Stanford School of Education and he gave the commencement address here last year. The Council on Hemispheric Affairs has distributed this attack on him, saying he had the dubious distinction of being one of the America’s most unpopular leaders since Latin America’s re-democratization commenced a decade ago: 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. 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.

RH:  That President Toiledo is unpopular cannot be denied, but the precise accusations should be scrutinized. Lori Berenson was duly convicted on serious charges.   Toledo cannot be blamed for working with the World Bank and the IMF.  I cannot say how far he has improved the lot of the Indians, but that is easier said than done,

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