Sea Change
Politics in Perú

While election fever is raging in the United States and taking global headlines by storm, Perú is quietly in the midst of its own pre-election fervor, anticipating the arrival of November 19th, when people go to the polls to elect new mayors in districts around the country. Now before I analyze, I would like to take a moment to appreciate that elections are on Sunday here, so everybody can vote. Voting happens to be obligatory, as does hanging the Peruvian flag from your house or building on election day, but that is besides the point.
Luis Castañeda is the official mayor of Lima, but all 30 districts within Lima have their own mayor as well. Castañeda has an approval rating close to 80% and considered running for president last year. Indeed by some standards he is more popular than the current president, Alan Garcia, or simply ¨Alan¨ as he is know here. (my next entry will be dedicated to insane Alan. Stay tuned)
Castañeda has chosen not to speak to the press or engage in any debates in the run up to the election. This is a common practice all over Perú for incumbents. He is not interested in answering questions knowing it would be difficult to improve on an 80% approval rating, which in a country where voting is mandatory, that is a pretty decent indicator that you will win again whether you open your mouth to reporters or not.
The press often does not help the matter of politics here. El Comercio, the most relied on paper, published an article on the front page recently that marveled at Casteñeda´s approval rating.
Lima is covered in a colorful array of political wrapping paper at the moment. Walls and billboards are plastered and painted with a variety of symbols and slogans for candidates. There are few regulations on where propaganda can go, so people take to painting names of candidates wherever they feel like it, including over the names of other candidates. Propaganda also can be found prominantly displayed on the front page of newspapers. (One editor explained to me that to keep his paper operating he needed the fat revenue only wealthy politicians can provide)

Please note in the upper right hand corner of this paper there are 3 ads for candidates. I also like the headline,
¨Death at Sea¨

My students have been given the task of visiting some of the less developed outer lying areas of Lima to talk to citizens about their needs and hopes for their districts. Most journalists don´t visit these neighborhoods, so it has been an interesting exercise to engage with a public that is not used to seeing microphones and being asked their thoughts. Our goal was to interview candidates too, but many have taken a shine to Casteñeda’s strategy and refused to talk. So we turned our focus to investigating some of the more pressing themes in these areas. We have encountered everything from security concerns (one group of students interviewed a hair stylist who had a gang rip a whole in his bathroom to get to an ATM machine in the next building over), to no sewer system, to unregulated bus systems, to packs of wild dogs, to a tuberculosis pandemic. Many of these issues are directly related to a political system that does not serve the people, instead serving themselves. Less you think I am sounding a bit Socialist, one must spend some time in Perú to understand what a frustrating place it is for the majority of citizens. As pointed out in a prior blog entry, people call the national radio network to ask for help instead of their local representatives.
Returning to my staple straw poll of cab drivers, most drivers begrudgingly admit they will vote for Casteñeda, but few feel inspired to do so. They appreciate that he has rerouted traffic and made the highways more efficient, but he has not done a whole lot else they claim.
The big word used by politicians here is ¨Obras¨ or public works. They love to build bridges and expand roads and occasionally new parks. They equally love to have somebody paint their name and the name of their political party on said public monuments. Many voters are conditioned to talk about Obras as well, thinking that is what politicians do, build things with concrete. I am trying to get my students to understand that by covering issues like health, finance, security, etc., they can help turn the attention to what life is like for most residents.

One of my students out in the field, literally...

My favorite example of Obras comes from a visit I made to Villa El Salvador, one of Lima´s largest and most destitute districts. It is where part of a major battle with Chile occurred in the 1800’s and soldiers are claimed to still be buried in the sand dunes around the area.
Enrique, my doorman and cub reporter, invited me to visit a part of Villa El Salvador where many migrants from Perú’s mountain region start out. I brought my tape recorder along and explained he would be playing the role of civic journalist. The guy was a natural…hands down. He convinced locals to talk to us about life in the barrio which sits on a tall sand dune that is covered in houses made from mostly recycled materials. We documented a local recycling center, latrines made out of old olive oil canisters, a two room shack inhibited by a family of four who have to lug barrels up their hill in order to have clean water for cooking and cleaning, and even some budding micro enterprise entrepreneurs who were advising locals on raising pigs. The coup de grace was a house that stood at the foot of a concrete stairway, an Obra from the aforementioned mayor Castañeda. A stairway could be a great aid to a neighborhood that sits on a steep sandy incline. The problem is that this stairway serves exactly two houses. The city stopped building it after a block, but not before they took the time to paint Casteñeda on the stairs and install an arch with the mayor´s name. Lovely.
Enrique giggled at the monument. He understands what is wrong here and knows that it is nothing short of a Garcia Marquez short story. Now if I can only overturn hundreds of years of ingrained inequality here so Enrique can run for president…I think we might sow some seeds of change.