Humala elige un modelo moderado.

 

 

Peru's Humala Charts Moderate Course

By David Dudenhoefer | 08 Aug 2011

Una imagen que Humala quiere dejar en el pasado.

LIMA, Peru -- During Peru's recent presidential election campaign, a chorus of politicians and pundits warned that a victory by leftist candidate Ollanta Humala would put the country on the same track as Venezuela under President Hugo Chavez. But since winning the second-round run-off on June 5 and being sworn in as Peru's new president July 28, Humala has surprised critics and supporters alike by the moderation of his rhetoric and quality of his cabinet.

Humala, a 49-year-old retired lieutenant colonel, is the first leftist to be elected president of Peru in two decades, but he did so by promising to follow the Brazilian, as opposed to the Venezuelan model of socialism. His victory reflects a shift in South America, where the left has been ascendant for the past decade, and in Peru, where the left has been marginalized since a ruthless communist insurgency wracked the country during the 1980s and 1990s.

Humala won by promising to maintain the country's pro-investment policies while expanding government programs for the poor, who constitute the bulk of his political base. His path to the presidency began with encouragement from his father, Isaac Humala, who founded a political movement called "ethnocacerimso" that espouses the nationalization of mines and industry and the superiority of Peru's indigenous peoples. The elder Humala urged his sons to join the army as a path to power. While still in uniform, Ollanta Humala led a small military uprising in the final days of the Fujimori government, which he was later pardoned for. He ran for president once before, in 2006, but was defeated by ex-President Alan Garcia after Hugo Chavez urged Peruvians to vote for Humala, an endorsement that turned the majority against him.

Humala consequently distanced himself from Chavez and campaigned in 2011 on promises to follow the model of former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who governed for eight prosperous years. Lula facilitated economic growth while creating government programs to help Brazil's poor masses, overseeing a reduction in poverty and ending his second term in office as the most popular president in the country's history.

In his July 28 inauguration speech, Humala said, "Peru will establish a new relationship between the state and the market, different from the failed extremist prescriptions of the interventionist state, or the minimal and excluding state."

"Humala has shown himself to be a pragmatist for a long time," said Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard University, who believes that Humala will oversee a left-of-center administration similar to that of Brazil and Uruguay. Levitsky added that whereas Chavez may have seemed like an attractive mentor in 2006, Venezuela's economy has since become a disaster, while Peru's economy has grown at a rate of 8 to 9 percent. "You don't have to be an Einstein to say, I'm not going to throw this overboard."

Lima's stock market plunged the day after Humala's electoral victory, but he quickly took steps to assure investors that he would maintain the country's macroeconomic policies. He asked Julio Velarde, who has been the president of Peru's Federal Reserve Bank since 2006, to continue at the bank's helm and named Luis Miguel Castilla, a member of Garcia's economic team, as his minister of the economy.

"In terms of economic policy, [Humala] has confirmed his move to the center," said Carlos Basombrío, a political analyst and former vice minister of the interior. Basombrío lauded the fact that Humala recruited ministers based on their experience, rather than on ideology or party affiliation. But he predicted that the cabinet's heterogeneous political leanings could make it difficult to govern cohesively.

On the international front, Basombrío expects Humala to continue Peru's tradition of maintaining good relations with all South American governments. The new president has promised to respect existing treaties and trade agreements and to seek greater cooperation on a regional level. Basombrío predicted that Humala's greatest challenges will come from within Peru, especially the impoverished areas where he enjoyed majority support -- and where his campaign promises have created high expectations.

Though steady economic growth has reduced the portion of Peruvians living in poverty from almost 50 to 31 percent over the past five years, such statistics provide little consolation for the more than 9 million Peruvians who remain in poverty. Both Basombrío and Levitsky concurred that reducing poverty and promoting development in regions where many people oppose mines and other investment could pose major challenges.

Humala has plans to create a Ministry of Development and Social Inclusion and distribute a small pension to people over the age of 65 in the country's poorest regions, among other social programs. He has also announced an increase in the minimum wage from $219 per month to $246 in 2011, and an increase to $274 in 2012.

Humala has inherited a strong economy and a budget surplus, and plans to institute a windfall profit tax on the mining industry, Peru's top earner that has seen profits rise for years on end. Nevertheless, Levitsky predicted that Humala will find it hard to improve conditions for the country's poorest citizens because Peru has a relatively weak state compared to Brazil or Mexico, both of which have undertaken comparable social inclusion initiatives.

"Humala has won a mandate to do what Lula did, but he doesn't have the tools he needs to do it," Levitsky said, adding that Humala can also expect considerable resistance to his policies from the country's economic elite.

Though Humala's public approval rating topped 60 percent in the month after his election, he may soon find himself in the same position as Garcia, whose approval rating rarely rose above 30 percent despite five years of strong economic growth and ample investment in public works. While Humala might find it hard to avoid the impatience and discontent that presidents before him have faced, he has an opportunity to make Peru's current economic boom benefit more Peruvians -- provided he manages to maintain it.

David Dudenhoefer is a freelance journalist based in Lima, Peru, from where he covers much of South America.