Peruvians
elected a rags-to-riches economist
as their next president in a vote that highlighted persisting racial
divisions in the land where Spanish conquistadors defeated
the ancient Inca Empire.
With 87 percent of the vote counted Monday, Alejandro Toledo defeated
Alan Garcia, 52 percent to 48 percent. International observers said
Sunday's runoff election was Peru's cleanest vote in years.
"Tonight Peruvians celebrate the triumph of democracy,"
Toledo told thousands gathered in front of the Sheraton Hotel
in downtown Lima. "I swear, brothers and sisters, I
will never let you down."
Toledo, a shoeshine boy who rose
from poverty to become a World Bank economist before entering politics,
will become Peru's first freely elected president of Indian descent
and probably the first president ever in Latin America who made
Indian pride a cornerstone of his campaign.
Toledo capitalized on his dark, chiseled Indian features and short
stature to mount a campaign replete with
imagery of triumphant Inca emperors and with odes to Indian glory.
Such rhetoric came as a shock in a country where Indians face discrimination
in almost every walk of life and
where two of the top television comedy acts are white men frolicking
around as silly Indian women in colorful skirts.
Garcia, a 6-foot-3 Spanish-looking former president, used flowery
language to overcome memories of his calamitous
1985-90 presidency, marred by corruption, guerrilla violence, food
shortages and hyperinflation.
He returned to Peru in January to seek re-election after nearly
nine years in exile waiting for corruption charges against him to
expire. Despite his loss, he emerges as Peru's strongest opposition
voice and a force to be reckoned with in the future.
Garcia's campaign stumbled because it failed to reach the Indian
and mixed-race population that makes up 80 percent of Peru's 26
million people. Many of those voters found a new hope in Toledo.
"He will be a symbol for all of Peru," said Mariano de
la Cruz, 62, an Indian migrant from the highlands state of Ayacucho,
after voting in a Lima slum. "It's a source of pride that for
the first time in my life I'll have someone of Indian race governing
me."
With partial regional results tallied, it was clear that the heavily
Indian highlands voted largely for Toledo, while Garcia took coastal
areas dominated by descendants of the Spanish conquistadors.
Toledo's campaign clearly targeted people
with indigenous roots. Calling himself "a stubborn Indian
with a cause," he used symbols of the ancient Inca Empire and
dressed in pointy hats and multicolored tunics during campaign stops.
"This is a very racist society," Toledo said during his
final campaign stop in the highlands city of Cuzco. "The elitist
leadership still has trouble digesting the possibility that someone
like us could come to govern."
Anthropologist Juan Ossio said Toledo recognized the potential
political force of Peru's Indian population during his first presidential
campaign in 1995 when his campaign slogan was "a Peruvian like
you" and finally was able to capitalize on it this year.
"He has learned to play very well with the symbols of Andean
culture," Ossio said. "Now President Toledo has the duty
to build bridges so the two cultures can come together."
Toledo acknowledged that responsibility in his victory speech,
pledging to be "a president for all Peruvians."
But, he added: "In me, you'll have the same Alejandro who
walks the streets, the same Alejandro who reaches out his hand to
touch yours."
Toledo campaigned largely on a populist platform. He has pledged
to create 2.5 million jobs, raise salaries for public workers and
lower taxes.
"He knows the poverty we endure," said Indian voter Primitiva
Huaman, 58. "He knows all our suffering."
|