Thursday, March 9, 2006
Welcome Mr. President Alejandro Toledo, and Hasta la Vista to your entirely mediocre presidency after next month’s elections
For Washington, Toledo was a model president and an apostle of the leisured presidency (where less is better than more) because he relished in a shortened work day, he was without strong convictions, was relatively pliable on the drug issue, entirely open to collaborating with the Pentagon on national security matters, and never met a neoliberal practice with which he didn’t feel comfortable
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In what is most likely to be one of his last visits abroad as president of Peru, Alejandro Toledo Manrique will meet with President George W. Bush when he arrives in Washington on March 10. Toledo’s five year-term as leader of the Andean country will leave very little to be remembered in its wake, and the talks can be summarized as an opportunity for Bush to briefly thank Toledo for a job well done. It was the Peruvian leader who spearheaded the Andean country’s signing of a free trade agreement with Washington, despite widespread reluctance among many Peruvian political figures. In this, Toledo proved to be yet another Peruvian president who yields to Washington’s wishes instead of paying attention to the desires of his fellow citizens. The meeting between both heads of state need not take long, as the Bush White House, with the free trade pact in hand, has already obtained what it most wanted out of Toledo’s tenure. . Toledo’s wife, Eliane Karp, known as “Madame Karp” in Peru, will accompany her husband, which, given her reputation as a stylish dresser, should provide her with a good opportunity to do some shopping in downtown D.C.’s more expensive boutiques, while her husband speaks of poverty abatement to Bush – another acolyte on that subject.
A President to Forget Toledo leaves office with one of the lowest poll ratings (averaging from 10 to 15 percent) of any Peruvian leader in history. He also will not be able to have a possible successor drawn from his party, Perú Posible, as its presidential candidate recently resigned from the presidential race (elections are set to take place on April 9). What he does leave in his wake are multiple debilitating issues that Peru will have to face for years to come, making it highly unlikely that he would receive a resounding crescendo of ballots should he decide to run again in the 2011 elections. Apart from the free trade agreement, which many of the presidential candidates have been reluctant to support (with the notable exception of the current front runner Lourdes Flores), the next president will have to deal with issues ranging from a major surge in the crime rate in cities like Lima and Arequipa, to the likely resurgence of the terrorist movement, Sendero Luminoso, in the Peruvian Amazon.
In April 2002, Toledo attended Harvard University’s Kennedy School ARCO Forum, where he declared: "I have a responsibility to do everything in my power to free my people from poverty." However, Toledo has directed relatively little time to the poverty issue; in fact, he spent very little time relating to any of the kind of matters usually found on a chief executive’s agenda. Toledo thus earned a reputation for indolence and indifference to issues, including not adequately reviewing the nagging Lori Berenson case (a young American woman who is presently in jail serving a 20 year term for being a sympathizer of the Tupac Amaru guerrilla movement in Peru). Rather than committing one of his rare acts of humanity, he gave this suffering woman the back of his hand. Some U.S. career foreign service officers have been pressing senior State Department officials to take up the Berenson case as an issue of major importance to U.S.-Peruvian bilateral relations.
Toledo has boasted for several years that the country’s economy has turned in a very strong performance. The free trade treaty with Washington and the rumors of a pending similar treaty with China, are used by Toledo supporters as examples of significant achievements on the part of his administration. However the reality is that while the economy might have improved, average citizens of the country have yet to feel the benefits of this. In 2002, the country’s economy grew by 5.3%, however that did not prevent Peru’s 300,000 hurting teachers from going to the streets to demand better salaries and working conditions on numerous occasions the following year. Eventually, the teachers settled for an increase of $30, bringing their monthly salaries to a grand total of $230 per month.
In the election campaign leading up to the ballot of 2001, Toledo ran on a platform stressing his indigenous roots, and a lack of identification with any of Peru’s traditional parties – two aspects which made him tremendously popular at the time. Today, Toledo leaves office with a popularity rating that, for the past year, fell within the range of 10-15%. If anything, Toledo will be remembered as the incompetent and lackluster successor to Peru’s notorious dictator Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000).
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full: http://www.coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/New_Press_Releases_2006/06.17_Peru_Elections.html
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Colin Brace
Amsterdam