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Peru's President Alan Garcia drops in polls

Living in Peru
Israel J. Ruiz

President Alan Garcia’s approval rating dropped even further in June after citizens in Peru held the government responsible for mining protests in the country’s southern region of Moquegua.

Garcia dropped another five percentage points to 30 percent in the nationwide survey by polling firm Ipsos Apoyo.

Many considered that his administration did not do enough to end the 10-day strike, which saw everything from riots to Moqueguans taking 59 police officers and a police general hostage.

Garcia’s disapproval rating showed that he was even more unpopular in Peru’s southern regions.

Polls showed that 90 percent of Peru’s citizens in the Andean country’s southern regions did not approve of the Head of State.

Inflation was another main factor which contributed to Garcia’s unpopularity. 64 percent of those polled affirmed that they disapproved of Peru’s president because of rising prices.

41 percent of survey participants stated Garcia was a liar and did not keep his word while 38 percent stated the country’s employment situation had not improved.

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# Anonymous George says :
23 June, 2008 [ 13:40 ]

Personally I disprove of Garcia because I don't have as much money as I would like, plus the weather isn't great these days. What an a**hole he is!

# Splaktar says :
24 June, 2008 [ 07:42 ]

"Personally I disapprove of Alan Garcia because I was getting free money for sitting on my ass complaining and now I'm not getting as much.  I also disapprove because he is personally responsible for the rising of food prices on a global scale.  Oh and I blame him for the high price of oil and gas all over the world!  Oh and I also hate Alan Garcia because my shipment is taking way too long to pass through customs!  I swear he's personally stalling it and making it late because he hates me as a person."

# Bush's Doggie says :
24 June, 2008 [ 11:36 ]

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# Jet says :
24 June, 2008 [ 18:13 ]

I understand your point George.  When inflation rates in Peru are analysed it's clear that they have nothing to do with Garcia or any other economic policy of his administration or any factor within Peru.  The moderate inflation is due to world commodity prices because of  market speculation, petroleum prices, food/grain price increases (also partially due to the petroleum crisis). 
Quite the contrary, Garcia and the Peruvian government have been very active in trying to minimize the impact of WORLD WIDE INFLATION on the people of Peru.  They have instituted fuel subsidies, food price subsidies, food handout programmes, and various other economic policies all aimed at limiting the effect of GLOBAL INFLATION that is hitting countries ALL OVER THE WORLD.

Would these same people also blame Garcia for the inflation happening in the USA, Europe, other South and central American nations, etc????

So Garcia is also to blame for a strike that went 10 days in which people of Moquegua took 59 police officers and a police general hostage? 

Like I said many times before.  I have a lot of sympathy for anyone that becomes president of Peru.  Basically, it's "you're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't".

I'm neither pro no anti Garcia. But so far, most of the reasons that are given during polls of why people don't like him, in actuality have little if anything to do with what he is doing as president, and more to do with leftist/communist propaganda that is being spread in these rural areas by Casas Alba and affiliates of "wannabe little dictator" -Ollanta Humala. Most of these centers of leftist/communist propaganda are funded in part or directly by the little dictator alliance of Chavez/Castro/Morales. Don't ever forget the effort and expense that Chavez went to trying to make sure Garcia didn't win the last Peruvian presidential election.  And just recently, Morales of Bolivia made it clear that he is anti-Garcia and in support of violent uprising in Peru.
The other thing you see and hear constantly is that people in the rural and moutain areas disapprove of Garcia because they don't see the prosperity that cities like Lima are seeing with the economic boom.  But the reality of the matter is that because of the programme of decentralization first started under Fujimori and then continued by Toledo, the rural governments are accumulation hundreds of times more capital in their couffers than ever before.  Indeed, one of the main problems has not been the availability of funds, but rather, the lack of expirience the local rural leaders have with managing the type of funds they now have which in many cases is in the millions and in some cases in the hundreds of millions of dollars. This is especially true around large mining areas or lucrative agricultural centres.
The reality of the matter is though, that there is no SIMPLE solution to poverty in rural Peru. Fujimori and Toledo both supported spreading schools and education thruought Peru to which we now are seeing the fruits of that effort with literacy rates now hovering around 90% on average in Peru. This of course is the first step in progress for all Peruvians and the country itself.  But literacy in itself does not eliminate poverty.
  The slow road to economic progress in rural areas where the majority of the populous have only expirienced and only know subsistance living  and have very little marketable skills that can produce substancial growth per capita is a challege not only for Peru but for every country in the world which has large segments of the population that are in these situations. 
Of course the easiest and most tempting thing to do is blame whom ever is the current president, doesn't matter if it's Fujimori, Toledo, Garcia, etc.... they all saw similar drops in popularity no matter how much good they were doing to turn Peru around economically and create a situation where the country can finally AFFORD to start addressing the problem of developing the interior of the country.
With the mega-projects Peru has in-store over the next 4 years, many of these areas will begin to see opportunity arise such as the type you would find in Lima, Trujillo, Arequipa. One thing is for sure though when it comes to what is needed for many of the economically disadvantaged of Peru's rural area to start seeing any REAL change and some of the prosperity that larger cities are expiriencing...> the infrastructure must be there first in order for opportunity to be present.
Which of course means politcal reform at the local level (governors, mayors, etc ), decentralization, continuing education, improvement of transportation/roads/access so that goods and services can flow freely and efficiently, ample energy supply to allow and promote the development of industrial/technological growth in these areas that can PROVIDE JOBS and opportunities to people in these areas. 
Soon, rural areas in southern Peru will have all of the above with projects such as the 2nd phase of the camisea gas line that will provide ample power starting from the jungle area where it originates all the way thru Cuzco, Ayacucho, and finally reaching Puno.
It's no coincedence that these are some of the most volatile areas in Peru where you hear the most protest and complaint coming that the people don't see the prosperity of the rest of the nation. 
If this were just a Peru situation, then yes I could see that there

The thing to keep in mind is the situation Peru was in and what the central government had do deal with starting with the unwise decisions that had been made decades before all the way back to the failed "Plan Inca" of Velasco which left Peruvian agriculture and economy in shambles and compele failure, to the run-away military spending under Bermudez, then the lovable but inept president Belaunde, to the inspiring but foolish leftist programmes initiated by Garcia in his first term that once again bankrupted the country.   
Here you are talking about 40 years of driving a country in to the ground.  A country like Peru which was already a 3rd world nation, of which at the time, more than half of its population was either illiterate or subsisting on less that 12 dollars a month, which by any account had one of the most corrupt systems of government in the world.
And now, that is all supposed to be fixed a few years after someone takes power as president? 
The only way Peru can do all of the things listed above is to attract enough commerce to the country and enough investment so as to provide the necessary income to afford any such plan.
And this is precisely what the current president is doing at a frenzied pace! 
Did Chile fix it's major problems over night?  Of course not.  It took decades of persistant investment in that country by a national government that although it had many flaws, it at least undestood that the only way to pull that country out of povert was thru economic growth.  Even in the case of that country to the south, not ALL Chileans saw properity right away.  It took many many years for opportunity to spread to much of the country and most of the segments.  Even to this day there are still segments of Chile such as the certain areas of the Mapuche natives that can say the same thing.. that they don't see this prosperity.  But for that reason would anyone say that Chile is not doing well or that Chile should go back to the days of communist rule?  90% of Chileans would laugh at that idea.  Peru is only in the midst of it's emergence from 3rd world status and significant economic development. 
There is no majic wand. There is no instant solution. What this country needs most right now is to stay the course and continue education, reform, growth, decentralization, and most of all.... internal stability. Hopefully more Peruvians will begin to realise that the promises offered by leftist/communist political movements have all been offered many times in the past, in countries all thruought Latin America and have never been able to deliver on these grandiose illusion or shinning paths that they promise.  In each case they leave a bankrupt, dissillusioned carcass of a nation behind after their dictatorial and self agrandized term comes to and end.
In each case the nations that offer the most hope for Latin America currently and which have pulled themselves out of extreme poverty are nations which followed the same path of development and joined the rest of the world in modern economic times. Now that we see Peru doing the same thing and getting the same results, one can only hope that the people will believe enough in their own future so as to support the present effort and not try to rip apart the very system which is on its way to giving them a brighter future.

# Jet says :
1 July, 2008 [ 01:27 ]

June 30th, 2008 - Latin Business Chronicle
"Peruvian President Alan Garcia isn't just sitting idle while hoping for increased foreign investment in his South American country.   In the past few months, he has sent letters to more than 600 companies in the United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America, his office revealed last week. One of his key jobs, Garcia says, "is to directly tell all companies in the world they should buy Peruvian products, invest in Peru, bring high-tech machines, build up our country and generate employment in our homeland." He followed up the letters with e-mail, he said. Last year, FDI in Peru reached $5.3 billion, an increase of 54.1 percent from 2006, according to data from ECLAC. That means Peru now barely ranks behind Argentina and significantly ahead of Venezuela"

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