34 The Americas The Economist July 10th 2021
F
or a democracyto survive, it needs
democrats. When large parts of op
posing political camps start to see each
other as enemies to be crushed, rather
than mere adversaries with whom to
compete peacefully, then democracy
comes under grave threat. That was the
case in Spain in the 1930s, on the eve of
its civil war, and in Brazil and Chile in the
runup to military coups in 1964 and 1973
respectively. In the past few weeks Peru
has seemed worryingly unstable, after a
polarised election campaign split the
country down the middle.
The official count gave victory in a
runoff on June 6th to Pedro Castillo, a
teacher and union leader running for a
farleft party, by just 44,000 votes (out of
17.6m) over his conservative opponent,
Keiko Fujimori. Ms Fujimori’s supporters
have spent the past month crying fraud.
They want to annul 200,000 of Mr Castil
lo’s votes, alleging they were falsified.
But on election day international observ
ers found no serious irregularities. The
United States and the European Union
have praised the conduct of the election.
Ms Fujimori’s lawyers have produced no
proof of fraud. Nobody has come forward
to back up their claims that signatures
were forged. The electoral tribunal has so
far rejected the allegations. It appears
poised to declare Mr Castillo president.
Will the conservative camp accept
defeat? Ms Fujimori has said she will
respect the tribunal’s ruling, though
when she narrowly lost in 2016 she set
out to thwart the centrist who defeated
her. Others have been cruder. In a bizarre
development Vladimiro Montesinos, the
corrupt spy chief when Ms Fujimori’s
father ruled Peru as an autocrat in the
1990s, appeared in a taped phone call
from his prison cell to a collaborator to
be proposing to bribe members of theelectoral tribunal. Scores of retired mil
itary officers last month signed a letter
calling on the armed forces not to recog
nise an “illegitimate” president. A former
presidential candidate has called for “a
civilianmilitary alliance”. This smacks of
trying to overthrow democracy in the
name of its defence. “It’s very dangerous to
start questioning the rules,” says Paula
Muñoz, a political scientist at the Pacific
University in Lima.
But there are legitimate reasons for
democrats to worry about Mr Castillo,
too—and pressing ones, since it is he who
is set to become president on July 28th.
His party is MarxistLeninist. Its founder
and leader, Vladimir Cerrón, spent a de
cade in Cuba. Its programme includes
largescale nationalisations. Mr Cerrón is
being investigated over claims of illegal
campaign financing (which he denies). Mr
Castillo’s organised supporters include
followers of a successor movement to the
Shining Path, a terrorist group whose
insurgency cost some 70,000 lives be
tween 1980 and 1992.
Mr Castillo failed to use the runoffelection to move convincingly to the
centre. Instead of distancing himself
from Mr Cerrón, at a meeting last month
he agreed he would share power with
him. Mr Castillo’s statements have been
contradictory. “We are not communists,
we are not going to take anybody’s prop
erty away,” he said before meeting busi
ness leaders. “We will respect this consti
tution.” Days later he said his first act as
president would be to ask Congress to
convoke a constituent assembly to write
a new constitution “with the smell,
colour and taste of the people”. This was
the device used by leftist populists such
as Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and Bolivia’s
Evo Morales to concentrate power and try
to rule indefinitely as autocrats.
Mr Castillo’s position is weaker than
that of those leaders. He won only 15% of
the vote in the election’s first round; his
allies hold 42 of the 130 seats in the new
Congress. He won only because many
moderate Peruvians couldn’t bring them
selves to vote for Ms Fujimori. But he can
draw on the force of the teachers’ union
and the ronderos(rural vigilantes). And
he will have access to state resources.
At best the likely outcome is chaotic,
poor governance. Mr Castillo has shown
little ability to build alliances or a team
capable of governing. He will take over a
country still reeling from the pandemic
and its associated recession. Peruvians
want a government that deals with their
problems, rather than embarking on a
new constitution which polls show a
majority do not want. In that case the
question is how long the country will be
able to tolerate an incompetent presi
dent. Congress has thrown out two presi
dents in the past five years. Before too
long Peruvians could find themselves
going back to the ballot box. Or they may
face something far worse.Fear, loathing and the threat to democracyBelloThe clash in Peru
ter and enough space for students to learn
at two metres apart. Like many union lead
ers, he sees no reason to compromise. The
government has continued to pay teachers’
salaries as they sit at home, so they have lit
tle incentive to get back to work.
Iván Duque, Colombia’s president, has
bungled his response to the teachers.
Around 25% of Colombians have had one
jab, less than in Argentina, Brazil and Mex
ico. Until recently, many teachers have in
deed not been vaccinated; in parts of the
country, fitness trainers got their jabs first.
For the government “education is not a priority,” claims Sandra García of the School
of Government at Los Andes University in
Bogotá. Last year it set aside $106m of its
pandemic emergency budget (of $4bn) to
adapt schools for social distancing. But the
measure came months after schools had
been shut, says Óscar Sánchez, a former
secretary of education for Bogotá. The
funds were also disbursed to local govern
ments, many of which are weak or corrupt.
Colombian students were already poor
ly served relative to their peers. Since the
2000s the government has spent 4% of
gdpon education, less than in other poorLatin American countries. As there are not
enough state schools, around half of chil
dren attend school in shifts. Teachers are
poorly paid; nearly a third of primary
school teachers do not have a degree.
Meanwhile, although data are patchy, it
seems that many children may not bother
to go back to school. A study by Ms García
suggests the dropout rate for Bogotá this
year could be around 8% (it is usually
around 3% nationally). Some teenagers are
joining gangs. The pandemic and the
school closures will resultina lost genera
tion, worries Ms Segovia.n