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Peru Prospects for the Fujimori Government
In some ways, these trends signified positive prospects
for
the Fujimori government. The degree of consensus on the
economic
approach was remarkable for a country as polarized both
ideologically and politically as Peru. Fujimori's original
cabinet was an eclectic and pragmatic one, which included
members
of virtually all political camps. Despite this diversity,
a
consensus eventually emerged.
Yet, there were some extremely worrisome trends as
well. In
addition to the economic shock program, the government
promised a
social emergency program to protect the poorest by
providing
temporary food aid and employment. However, no such
program
materialized over a year into the government. Although
this was
explained in part by resource constraints, it was also
explained,
in large part, by lack of political will, as no one person
had
any bureaucratic responsibility for the needs of the poor.
In other countries implementing shock economic
programs,
temporary measures to compensate the poor have played
important
social welfare and political roles in making economic
reform more
acceptable and viable. In addition, they have played an
important
role in providing foreign donors with a single
bureaucratic
entity through which to channel necessary aid. The lack of
such a
program on any significant scale in Peru was unfortunate,
as
socioeconomic indicators had already deteriorated markedly
prior
to the adjustment program, and in areas where the threat
of
increasing insurrectionary violence was a realistic one
(see Health and Well-Being
, ch. 2).
Despite the new political dynamics, the tradition of
centralized and authoritarian presidential leadership
remained
intact. Fujimori had a strong tendency to attempt to
control his
ministers and to appoint loyalists. Some of the most
talented and
independent-minded ministers left the cabinet after a few
months
because Fujimori undermined their authority. These
included
Carlos Amat y León y Chávez, the minister of agriculture;
Gloria
Helfer Palacios, the minister of education; Carlos Vidal
Layseca,
the minister of public health; and even Prime Minister
Hurtado
himself in March 1991. After Hurtado's resignation,
Fujimori
separated the positions of prime minister and economics
minister,
presumably so that he could have more relative control
than he
had with the popular Hurtado. Also telling was Fujimori's
insistence on the appointment of Jorge Chávez Alvarez, a
young
and relatively inexperienced doctoral student, as
president of
the Central Bank, despite the misgivings of virtually all
respected economists. Chávez was seen as a Fujimori
loyalist
through whom the president could manipulate and control
the
Central Bank.
In addition, Fujimori's need to make an "unholy"
alliance
with APRA in Congress to get measures passed acted as a
barrier
to the reform of the state sector. APRA had been the only
political force to back the Chávez appointment, and it was
widely
perceived that Fujimori would have a political price to
pay for
that backing in the future. Indicative of the price was a
debate
within the Ministry of Education, in which Fujimori
supported
APRA against his own minister, Gloria Helfer. She was
trying to
trim the size of the ministry, which had grown to
unrealistic
proportions during the APRA government owing to its
filling of
posts for party reasons. The row resulted in the
resignation of
Helfer and a stalling of the reform of the public
education
sector.
The age-old tradition of centralism also prevailed. For
financial reasons and lack of political will, the
regionalization
process was stalled. Under existing conditions, regional
governments were little more than politicized
bureaucracies.
Finally, and most worrisome, was the resurgence of
another
tradition in Peru--government reliance on the military for
power.
Fujimori lacked any institutionalized base and had
cultivated
strong ties with the military by granting it what it
wished, as
demonstrated by his attempt to legalize its impunity
through
Decree Law 171.
There are many plausible explanations for the
autogolpe. The most significant one, which has been
noted
here, was Fujimori's lack of organized or party-based
support,
resulting in his increasing reliance on the armed forces
and on
rule by decree. By early 1992, APRA stopped supporting
Fujimori
and coalesced the opposition in Congress, somewhat
ironically,
under the leadership targeted by government repression
after the
coup, indicative of the extent to which the government
felt
threatened by APRA opposition. In March there had been a
politically damaging scandal among Fujimori's close circle
of
advisors, in which his wife publicly accused his brother,
his
closest advisor, of misuse of foreign aid donations.
Another of
Fujimori's close advisors, Vladimiro Montesinos Torres,
the de
facto head of the National Intelligence Service (Servicio
de
Inteligencia Nacional--SIN), had been pressuring the
president
for some time to free the counterinsurgency struggle from
judicial interference. This coincided with a major SL
assault on
the city of Lima. At the same time, relations with the
United
States were at an all-time low owing to disagreements over
counternarcotics strategy, possibly leading Fujimori to
conclude
that there was not all that much to lose from jeopardizing
relations with the United States.
There was the possibility that Fujimori would abide by
the
timetable that he set out and reinstate the parliament one
year
later. Yet, the undermining of the constitutional system
had farreaching costs. First, democratic development is not
attained by
rescinding the constitution and the institutions of
government
whenever a crisis is perceived. Second, Fujimori had been
able to
pass virtually all the laws pertaining to his economic
program by
the decree powers awarded to him by the Congress;
continuing the
economic program was not the reason for its closing. If
anything,
the program was seriously jeopardized by the international
isolation that the coup precipitated, owing to the
critical role
that international financial support played. Third, the
elimination of important constitutional rights, such as
habeas
corpus, for over a year was likely to result in a
worsening of
Peru's already poor human rights record. The coup also
played
into the SL's strategy of provoking a coup in order to
polarize
society into military and nonmilitary camps. Finally, a
yes or no
plebiscite is a tool that has been used to establish
popular
support by a number of dictators, including Benito
Mussolini and
Ferdinand Marcos. Given short-term popular support for
almost any
kind of drastic solution to Peru's many problems, there
was a
very high risk that Fujimori and the military would use
the
plebiscite as a tool to justify further undermining Peru's
constitutional system.
Peru was clearly in a critical situation, where extreme
economic deterioration and spiraling political violence
had to be
reversed as a prerequisite to democratic consolidation.
Neither
was a simple process, and there was no guarantee that
Peru's
fragile institutions would survive the challenge; they
were
jeopardized severely by the measures taken on April 5,
1992. In
the short term, in addition to the rapid restoration of
constitutional democracy, an important first step would be
a more
visible and tangible commitment to the poorest sectors,
which
were suffering the most from the economic program, had the
smallest margin for deterioration in their living
standards, and
were the primary focus of insurgent groups as well. The
outbreak
of a cholera epidemic in 1991 was a prime example of the
extent
to which social welfare infrastructure and other needs of
the
poor had been sorely neglected for several years.
Otherwise,
despite all good intentions on the economic front, the
social
peace necessary to reestablish and consolidate democratic
government would be unattainable.
Data as of September 1992
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