My increasing worries of a Peruvian Donald Trump

In one of his most important books, Ciudadanos sin República, Alberto Vergara describes two main causes for the state of contemporary Peru. The first one, is the success of the neoliberal promise, expressed in a huge economic growth over the past two decades. The second, is the failure of what he calls the republican promise or republicanism, a theory which, unlike the first one, does not focus on economy and instead prioritizes the strengthening of democratic institutions. The problem was not that both were applied and only one prevailed, the problem was that the neoliberal promise completely took over, leaving republicanism totally forgotten.

It was a common belief by many politicians and citizens that economic growth would inevitably end up solving the problems that the republican promise wanted to address, and for a while, it seemed like that was the case. The country was living in prosperity (at least on the surface) and private investment was at an all-time high. However, as the years went by, the consequences of neglecting institutional problems would become apparent. Now, we are living one of our biggest political crises in the midst of a world-paralyzing pandemic. But what does this have to do with Peruvian Donald Trump?

Well, besides giving some context, the first paragraph mentions a success story, one which could not have been possible without our guy. His name is Hernando de Soto, and he had a crucial role in gradually convincing the Peruvian high society of embracing the up-and-coming neoliberal concept in the 80’s.

It is well said that even though Alberto Fujimori won the 1990 elections, it was his opponent’s (Mario Vargas Llosa) ideas that actually won. However, Vergara disagrees with this, stating that the actual winners were De Soto’s ideas. He is widely recognized, even internationally, as one of the most influential economists in Peru and Latin America. Bill Clinton once called him “the world’s greatest living economist”, and he has also received praise from Margaret Thatcher and Kofi Annan, not to mention the multiple prestigious awards he has received.

So, now we know that he was a vital figure in the early stages of the development of neoliberalism in Peru, and that he helped the Peruvian economy recover from the hyperinflation that resulted from former President Alan García’s policies. That makes him look good, right? Well, yes actually, it makes him look fantastic, especially in a country where most of the people don’t pay attention to policies or proposals when evaluating their presidential candidates. Here, people see the stats, be it a high school degree (believe it or not), a college or a master’s degree, and (only recently) if the candidate has any crime-related investigations. This is where the first Trump comparison comes to mind, the successful, wealthy man who is an outsider to the usual candidates. Now, let’s fast forward to this year, after it was announced that he would be running for the 2021 general elections.

De Soto was pretty much absent when the congress impeached the ex-president Martin Vizcarra arbitrarily, (which was considered by most Peruvians as a coup) except for challenging another presidential candidate over debating a new constitution. Other candidates were more emphatic about their rejection of the new far-right government, which represented everything the majority of Peruvians were against. Maybe the reason why De Soto never showed much opposition was that he himself sympathizes with the far-right. In fact, when asked about the protests, he indicated that he believed that there were Marxist leaders instigating the youth to go to the streets. That in my opinion, is not only extremely absurd, but also dangerous. Said phrases coming from an important figure like him polarizes the less informed. If he says that there is a communist threat so powerful out there that controls the minds of the younger generations, some people are going to believe it, and it's going to generate hostility and hatred towards groups of people whose only crime is to think differently than them. But there’s no such threat. It is so hard for the Peruvian far-right to realize that young people think for themselves, that they always end up calling them terrorists (an infamous but common practice that we call terruquear) and blaming the communists or the opposition for leading them to chaos. That is why De Soto is dangerous, he is the most legitimate and popular candidate that the pronounced far-right has (only Keiko Fujimori is more popular, but I’ll talk about her some other time), and he is not scared to misinform the public or spread hate speech.

Regardless, remember the candidate that he challenged to a debate? Her name is Veronika Mendoza, the most important presidential candidate that the left has, and De Soto tried to make her look like a terrorist. In an interview for Willax, the Peruvian equivalent of Fox News, he linked her with Shining Path, the most harmful terrorist group in the country’s history, claiming that he had seen pictures that confirmed it. However, the pictures he’s talking about were clearly fake, and had been edited so that she was shown besides the terrorist leader, as if he hadn’t been captured and imprisoned 28 years ago, when Mendoza was only 12 years old.

Translation: Ex-militant of Frente Amplio found this picture (top). And said she is not a communist terrorist (bottom) Top image: We see the edited image of Veronika Mendoza posing with Abimael Guzman, leader of Shining Path. Bottom Image: the actual photograph, depicting Mendoza with a Frente Amplio colleague, Marco Arana.

All in all, we can say that De Soto has huge merits regarding the country’s economic development and is also the most experienced and decorated presidential candidate we have. But he has been pretty erratic lately. He doesn’t remember things he should (He is older than Joe Biden by the way) and seems a little confused when answering some questions. But that doesn’t make him a villain, only less incapable of running a country. What makes him a villain is his disregard for real verified information. His latest move was presenting a poll on Willax that showed him as the frontrunner in the presidential race. It was allegedly made by a government branch, which responded later that night denying any involvement and stating that it “isn’t even their job to make polls”. De Soto didn’t back down and insisted that the poll was real. This inclination for spreading hate speech and fake news without even trying to hide it or doing it by mistake, is the reason why I consider Hernando De Soto as the closest thing we have to Donald Trump.

So, for the sake of truth and verified information, hopefully he doesn’t win, and it doesn’t seem likely that he will (note that people said the same about Trump early on), but there are tons of comments on social media that show that he is seen as a legitimate candidate, the only one that’s worth the vote. That’s why I’m increasingly worried, and why I believe that his loss won’t be the last of the far-right’s attempts to take over the president’s seat.