In Peru's national elections on April 9, Ollanta Humala of the nationalist Union for Peru (UP) party is currently leading in national polls (with 31 percent) against the center-right candidate Lourdes Flores Nano of the National Unity (UN) party (26 percent) and former president Alan Garcia of the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA) party (23 percent).1 Regardless of whether Humala wins a majority, or the election goes to a second round in May, the former Army officer's rapid rise in the polls is another example of the political shift toward populist, nationalist, and regionalist politics and economic policy in Latin America.
Humala has expressed these ideas repeatedly in his campaign: “[N]ationalism is the defense of our sovereignty and our resources. It is our answer to the neoliberal economic model that is destroying Peruvian society.”2 In the last several years, six presidents who ran explicitly against the “neoliberal” economic reforms of the last 25 years have won elections in South America.3 The most likely reason for this continuing political trend is the long-term economic growth failure in Latin America. From 1980-2000, per capita GDP grew by only 9 percent; for 2000-2005, it was 1 percent. By contrast, GDP per person grew by 82 percent in the two decades from 1960-1980.4 The last quarter century has seen the worst growth performance for any 25-year period in more than a century in Latin America, and this economic failure has had enormous consequences that will continue to spill over into the political sphere.
Full story: http://www.cepr.net/publications/peru_background_2006_04.pdf
Posted by proutist-universal on May 5, 2006 07:49 AM | TrackBack
