On the Scene: Prolonging Peru’s Solitude?

THE FIRST surprise came from the taxi driver who, at four o’clock in the morning on Thursday, April 5, was taking me from Jorge Chavez International Airport to Vista Alegre, a middle-class suburb on the other side of Lima. “Fujimori could win,” said the driver. “He certainly will finish close to Mario. The second round? Who knows. But the chinito [“Little Chinese”—generic (but not necessarily derogatory) term for any and all Orientals] has my vote.” This man was to be the only person I would meet, either before or after the election, who declared his support for the Nisei who on Palm Sunday won some 30 per cent of the popular vote, within three points of the favorite, novelist Mario Vargas Llosa.

But this is Peru: two parts Oz, one part Kafka. When I first visited 23 years ago the dollar was at 27 soles; when I left on Holy Thursday it was at 27,000 intis (there are 1,000 soles to the inti). In such a country—and inflation is only one of many reasons to feel “absurd and unreal” in Peru, according to Vargas Llosa—how should a novelist and an agronomist-academic not be the leading contenders for the presidency? Rarely was there running water during the day: a highland drought had emptied the Rimac River. Rarely was there electricity during the day, so scarce are the resources that produce electricity. And rarer still was there any debate among the candidates over cocaine-trafficking or Shining Path terrorism. Perhaps Fujimori’s rise should not have come as a surprise at all.

JC

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James Como

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Presidential Election

Terrorism

Inflation

THE FIRST surprise came from the taxi driver who, at four o’clock in the morning on Thursday, April 5, was taking me from Jorge Chavez International Airport to Vista Alegre, a middle-class suburb on the other side of Lima. “Fujimori could win,” said the driver. “He certainly will finish close to Mario. The second round? Who knows. But the chinito [“Little Chinese”—generic (but not necessarily derogatory) term for any and all Orientals] has my vote.” This man was to be the only person I would meet, either before or after the election, who declared his support for the Nisei who on Palm Sunday won some 30 per cent of the popular vote, within three points of the favorite, novelist Mario Vargas Llosa.

But this is Peru: two parts Oz, one part Kafka. When I first visited 23 years ago the dollar was at 27 soles; when I left on Holy Thursday it was at 27,000 intis (there are 1,000 soles to the inti). In such a country—and inflation is only one of many reasons to feel “absurd and unreal” in Peru, according to Vargas Llosa—how should a novelist and an agronomist-academic not be the leading contenders for the presidency? Rarely was there running water during the day: a highland drought had emptied the Rimac River. Rarely was there electricity during the day, so scarce are the resources that produce electricity. And rarer still was there any debate among the candidates over cocaine-trafficking or Shining Path terrorism. Perhaps Fujimori’s rise should not have come as a surprise at all.