The Economist - USA (2020-11-21)

The EconomistNovember 21st 2020 The Americas 31

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Bello The politics of destruction

T

ime waswhen investors believed that

Peru’s fast-growing economy was

immune to its politics. That contention,

always questionable, was tested almost

to destruction this month. With the

country suffering a power vacuum and

on the brink of descending into violent

chaos, on November 16th a shamefaced

Congress chose Francisco Sagasti, a

76-year-old centrist academic, as the

country’s caretaker president. He is the

fourth man to hold the top job since the

last presidential election in 2016.

In Mr Sagasti Peru has come up with a

winning ticket in its political lottery. His

are the safest hands imaginable, but his

task is not simple. It is to tackle the pan-

demic and the economic slump, both

particularly severe in Peru, while steer-

ing the country through a general elec-

tion due in April. His anointing followed

the failure of a power grab by elements in

Congress, who on November 9th voted

by 105 to 19 to oust Martín Vizcarra, the

president since 2018, on grounds of

“moral unfitness”.

Power passed to Manuel Merino, the

speaker of Congress. Rightly or wrongly,

many Peruvians saw in this a plot to

postpone the election and to advance

murky private interests. Mr Merino

named as prime minister Ántero Flores-

Aráoz, a 78-year-old of the hard right who

won just 0.4% of the vote in the 2016

presidential election. His law practice

represents substandard private universi-

ties that are trying to overturn a universi-

ty reform. His backers wanted to raid the

treasury through populist giveaways.

This takeover prompted the biggest

street protests in Peru for 20 years, main-

ly by young people and in defiance of a

pandemic-related state of emergency.

They met a brutal police response. Two

protesters were killed and scores injured.

With his gambit collapsing, Mr Merino

resigned and promptly vanished. His

putsch highlighted the way that political

parties in Peru have become vehicles for

private interests and for evading justice.

Some legislators pay for places on party

lists and expect a return. Although 68 of

Congress’s 130 members face criminal

charges of various kinds, the legislature

protects its own from prosecution.

This month’s episode marked the cli-

max of years of conflict that runs along

several axes. One dates back to Alberto

Fujimori, who ruled as an autocrat from

1990 to 2000. He defeated the Shining Path

terrorist movement and reformed the

economy, but his regime was corrupt. His

daughter, Keiko, narrowly failed to win the

election in 2016 because anti-fujimoristas

of all stripes united against her. Her party

used its majority in Congress to thwart the

governing programme of the winner,

Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.

Another source of conflict involves

corruption and its weaponisation. Mr

Kuczynski resigned in 2018 to avoid im-

peachment over conflicts of interest. He

remains under house arrest. His three

predecessors are all accused: one is

awaiting extradition from the United

States, one killed himself and a third

spent time in jail. Corruption is indeed

systemic in Peru, and Peruvians know it.

But the presumption of innocence and a

sense of proportion have been lost. No

leader has been tried. Ms Fujimori spent

16 months in jail for alleged campaign-

finance violations. Prosecutors are seek-

ing to drive her party out of existence. Mr

Vizcarra was popular, despite a mediocre

record and woeful management of the

pandemic, because he championed the

cause of anti-corruption. But the pretext

for his summary ousting was evidence

that he had been corrupt when he was a

provincial governor (an allegation that

he denies).

The third faultline is the battle be-

tween the executive and Congress, which

Mr Vizcarra exacerbated. He tried to push

through political reforms. One of the few

that was approved unwisely barred legis-

lators from consecutive terms. Last year

he dissolved Congress in a battle over

appointments to the Constitutional

Tribunal. The new Congress, elected in

January, is even less biddable. Since its

members will serve for only 19 months

and cannot stand next year, they have no

incentive to behave decently.

More useful reforms are coming into

effect for April’s election, including a cull

of minor parties and a bar on candidates

charged with serious crimes. Several

presidential hopefuls are populists,

some of them dangerous ones. Those

who are not will find it hard to assemble

a reformist coalition in the next legisla-

ture. One thing is clear: the crowds of

millennials out on the streets want a

better democracy. Getting it will be a lot

harder than chasing out Mr Merino.

Peru has overcome its immediate crisis, but faces a bumpy ride

but also cocaine. Last year Sea Shepherd, a

vigilante conservation group, filmed fish-

ermen aboard a nodrizabeheading a shark,

a practice that is illegal in Ecuador. The

fishermen then played with the head for

Sea Shepherd’s cameras.

Ecuador’s government tried to crack

down, especially after the eu’s “yellow-

card” warning. In April the legislature

passed a law that increases fines for illegal

fishers. Vessels are now prohibited from

selling three endangered species of shark,

even if they are by-catch, says Jeff LeBlanc,

a government adviser. The government has

started an advertising campaign to dis-

courage Ecuadoreans from eating shark.

Conservationists say these measures

will not work. Ecuador’s coast guard and

navy do not have enough money to patrol

its seas effectively. Ecuador must improve

its rules and enforcement before the eu

lifts its yellow card, says an euofficial.

Conservationists are urging the govern-

ment to double the size of the Galapagos re-

serve. That would cripple Ecuador’s fishing

industry, which competes with China’s

modern, government-subsidised fleet,

says Bruno Leone, president of the Nation-

al Chamber of Fisheries, a pressure group.

The pain would be temporary, respond

advocates of the expansion. Eventually it

would lead to an increase in fish stocks and

thus to bigger catches. The Galapagos re-

serve, even though it is poorly policed, has

rescued species threatened by overfishing.

A bigger one would help the threatened yel-

lowfin tuna population. The critically en-

dangered scalloped hammerhead shark,

which mates and lays eggs in the Galapagos

reserve, might survive. If Ecuador wants to

continue profiting from its marine riches,

it will have to protect them. 7