Opinion polls are predicting that the likely winner of the April 10 Peruvian presidential election will be Alejandro Toledo. The candidate of Possible Peru, Toledo was the neoliberal president from 2001-06.
After the narrow victory of the moderate left candidate Susana Villaran from Social Force in the Lima mayoral elections last year, it was predicted that the left’s prospects might improve nationally.
So far this has failed to materialise, owing partly to a redoubled effort by the elite and its foreign backers to promote Toledo.
As an academically-trained free market economist, Toledo is the perfect front candidate for foreign capital. He has a marketable “indigenous” background with a belief in the supremacy of US capitalism.
It is also possible, though less likely, that conservative candidate and ex-Lima mayor Luis Castaneda of the National Solidarity Alliance could prevail.
Diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks confirm that both candidates, especially Toledo, meet with official United States approval for their support of US policies in Peru and the rest of Latin America.
During his presidential term, Toledo expanded the neoliberal development model. The Toledo administration negotiated a US-Peru Free Trade Agreement. The one-sided FTA was implemented shortly after Toledo left office.
The FTA granted US corporations unrestricted access to Peru’s abundant metal, mineral and petrochemical resources in return for a few minor concessions.
Toledo also sought investment from non-US based corporations, resulting in a socially and environmentally devastating international “scramble for Peru” — which only accelerated under current President Alan Garcia.
The FTA is officially aimed at lifting all Peruvians out of poverty. Behind closed doors, however, US officials show no illusions about the skewed impact of the policies they promote.
Commenting on the resurgence of the ultra-militarist armed group Shining Path, US ambassador Michael McKinley said a 2008 message: “Notwithstanding Peru’s much-touted macroeconomic advances of recent years, poverty, marginalization, unemployment and lack of opportunity in general … remain stubbornly persistent … as long as this remains so the country will continue to provide fertile terrain for radical groups.”
Other cables published by WikiLeaks also show that the US is under no illusions about the narco-trafficking kickbacks that underpin Peruvian politics and the military.
US diplomats have expressed concern about the rampant corruption, but remain determined to prop up the existing system.
In return, Washington expects its puppet politicians in Lima to give free reign to foreign capital, employing violent methods of repression when necessary to contain outbreaks of dissent.
Describing the 2009 Bagua massacre, the US embassy justified Garcia’s brutal response to protesting indigenous tribespeople in a leaked cable. In the cable, the embassy alleged that “radical and possibly foreign interference … played a role”.
A second Toledo presidency will mean that Peru remains open to capitalist exploitation. It will also ensure that Peru remains closely allied with the US and its chief proxy in the region, Colombia.
In a classified “scenesetter” prior to then-US Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld’s 2005 visit, US ambassador James Struble observed: “GOP [Government of Peru] cooperation with GOC [Government of Colombia] is best in the region … Peru cooperates closely with the Colombians on operations …
“Peruvians are convinced they have a stake in President Uribe’s successful campaign against the FARC [left-wing Colombian guerrilla group].”
Rumsfeld was advised to officially inform Toledo and his defence minister: “We are impressed by the level of cooperation with Colombia. Peru gets it.”
Toledo still “gets it”.
Toledo has been outspoken in his support of the reactionary Colombian regime — which has targeted not only armed leftist insurgents but all forms of civil dissent — and his condemnation of Venezuela’s left-wing government.
Toledo has forged a close alliance with corporate-funded lobby groups such as the Brookings Institute and the US government-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Toledo’s own think tank, the Global Centre for Development and Democracy, receives funding from NED and Brookings — both of which are notorious for meddling in foreign elections.
The WikiLeaks releases confirm that the US will not tolerate the rise of political movements that it deems “radical” or “anti-system”.
Since 2006, when the Peruvian Nationalist Party rose to prominence on the back of widespread public disenchantment with Toledo’s neo-liberal policies, US diplomats have been conducting a thinly-veiled campaign against PNP leader Ollanta Humala.
Prior to the election of that year, the US ambassador met with Castaneda to discuss appropriate strategies for dealing with Humala. Castaneda’s views “on the basis for Humala’s popularity”, noted Struble, “and on the ways to undermine it, are worth paying attention to”.
Humala is currently trailing in the polls and it appears unlikely that he will garner as many votes as he did in 2006.
For this Humala and his party are partly to blame, with internal disputes between the left and nationalist factions weakening the party’s standing.
But US and elite Peruvian interests have also clearly played a role in damaging Humala, who has been bending over backwards to distance himself from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the “radical” left, by using the corporate media to run a sustained smear campaign against him.
So far in the campaign, Land and Liberty’s presidential candidate Father Marco Arana, a distinguished environmental campaigner and human rights activist from Cajamarca, has been virtually ignored by the Peruvian mainstream media.
This is not surprising, as Peruvian national politics has historically been monopolised by Lima-based elites, perpetuating the injustice that remains at the core of Peruvian life.
As long as the Peruvian system remains unchanged by the revolutionary tide of popular mobilisation, “outsider” candidates such Arana will be deprived of the political oxygen needed to break through.
This is exactly what Washington and the big mining corporations want.
It is likely that the outcome of the 2011 election will represent a victory for US interests and a defeat for indigenous and campesino social movements that are resisting the plunder of Peru’s natural resources by rapacious corporationss and the ruling oligarchy.