In Peru’s volatile politics, placing odds on a presidential race would challenge the most daring of bookies. Political aspirants have been known to shoot up the polls and win in the last weeks of an election -- two recent presidents did just that.
Former Peruvian president Alan García certainly has the odds against him for this year’s election, in which the first round of voting was set for April 9. He’s saddled with the highest negative rating of any candidate, owing to sour memories of his 1985'90 presidential term, when his populist program and debt-defying antics ran the economy into the ground.
This year his support languished at about 16 percent until mid-February. But at the end of March, he was holding steady at about 21 percent, while the former front-runner, conservative Lourdes Flores, began to lose ground to nationalist and retired army lieutenant colonel Ollanta Humala, now the lead candidate for top office. But García, surprisingly, is within range for contending in the second round of voting, in May.
What changed García’s fate? The spot turns of salsa dancing that the politician began using in his campaign two months ago. When addressing crowds García would sing and dance to two hugely popular songs: the upbeat “Life is a Carnival,” made famous by salsa goddess Celia Cruz, and a lively song about personal troubles, “Decisiones,” by Panama’s Rubén Blades.
García gets his crowds dancing -- a sure sign of success for what his image manager, Hugo Otero, calls the “campaign of happiness.” The idea is to allow Peru’s poor to express their joy and prove to the world that “neoliberalism has not crushed us.” Following his success with salsa, and reggaetón -- a blend of Jamaican reggae with Latin and hip-hop influences -- polls showed García rated as the candidate who best understands young people, who make up 42 percent of voters.
Depending on whom you ask, García is either a brilliant orator, a masterful critic or a snake charmer. His economic policies have become more mainstream: If elected, he promises to respect private and foreign investment, strengthen the government’s role as a regulator, broaden the tax base, increase private sector highway concessions and diversify exports. “He is no longer going to default,” says Gianfranco Bertozzi, a New Yorkbased analyst who covers Latin America for Lehman Brothers. “He is much less populist now and talks market-speak. I think he has learned his lesson.” Not to mention some new moves.
