"A President Like You": Fujimoris Popular Appeal
Oliart, Patricia
In the 1990 presidential election, political unknown IAlberto Fujimori conducted a deliberately simple campaign, in sharp contrast to the multimilliondollar media blitz of Mario Vargas Llosa....
...With the help of a well-honed discourse stripped of ideological content, Fujimori has been able to circumvent obsolete and discredited party structures...
...The most obvious, of course, is the autogolpe, or "selfcoup," of April, 1992, when he gutted the Constitution and shut down Congress...
...Fujimori wanted his presidency associated with the act of building and generating new resources at a time when Shining Path's message was perceived as one of total destruction...
...He righteously defends his government's actions in the face of the opposition's criticism, which he dismisses as a lack of gratitude...
...At the same time, however, he has a very traditional image of poor Peruvians...
...A helicopter has replaced the "Fujimobile" as the preferred mode of presidential transport, permitting Fujimori to visit remote parts of the country several times a week...
...These politicians are the vilified "other" responsible for Peru's misfortunes, while he and the people are the authentic "we...
...They identified with Fujimori because he was not white, but he wasn't a cho/lo either, which in Peru's complex ethnic hierarchy would have alienated some groups...
...places where things are happening" and gets things done...
...He tries, for example, to defy convention whenever possible...
...Fujimori contrasts this hands-on approach to the unfulfilled promises of the "traditional politicians," whom he chides for being unfamiliar with the "profound" Peru and motivated only by their own self-interest...
...In a highly publicized visit, Fujimori prayed for Peru's future before one of these images...
...In public opinion polls since 1990, he averages an approval rating of about 65...
...There are numerous examples of his indifference to rules and institutional norms...
...He does not, however, pretend to incorporate the poor in government decision-making, or even to encourage them to strengthen their own self-help organizations...
...His popular appeal is the consequence in part of his skillful use of the electronic media, especially television...
...Philosophizing and saying nice things won't get us anywhere," he says...
...carries a vicuna at the Inti Fujimori distances himself from "traditional" politics...
...Promising to be "a president like you," he delivered short public speeches, talked and dressed simply, and interacted informally with ordinary people...
...At no time does Fujimori's relationship with his country's impoverished majority threaten the status quo...
...During the outbreak of a cholera epidemic in 1991, for example, a series of images of a weeping virgin "appeared" throughout Lima...
...The style of his presidency-coupled with the substance of his economic and social policies-reassures the upper classes that his government will protect their interests...
...His government, Fujimori boasts, has "done away with the style of governing at cocktail parties...
...During these visits -which are broadcast almost nightly on the evening news-Fujimori asks each community what their greatest needs are, and promises to send materials if the people agree to chip in with their labor...
...He goes out to the "forgotten villages," as he likes to call them, in order to personally supervise government programs...
...Dressed in ponchos and chullos (hats with ear flaps worn in the Andes), he danced with the locals to their regional music...
...In general, Fujimori symbolically fulfills the strong desire of Peru's historically excluded majorities to be included in the political system...
...He relates to the poor as if they were children who need a wise and strong parent to take care of them...
...This style revealed Fujimori's profound, if intuitive, understanding of Peruvian political culture...
...In the middle of an official televised meeting, for example, Fujimori will pepper his speech with colloquial language or crack a joke or two...
...This is an appealing trait in a country where over half of the working population labors in the informal sector, and where bribing a police officer to overlook a traffic infraction or paying a judge to hand down a favorable sentence has become commonplace...
...appearances have also helped him develop a style of relating directly to the people without the intermediation of political parties...
...He claims that political parties are merely vehicles for these corrupt politicians, and not the channels for popular demands that they purport to be...
...Several observers attributed Fujimori's electoral victory to the growing crisis of Peru's traditional political parties and the decline of the Lima-based white criollo establishment that these parties historically represented...
...Fujimori says he needs no party because he embodies the interests of Peru's majority...
...His motto was "honor, technology and work...
...These new social groups voted for Fujimori, who had no apparent ties to Peru's traditional criollo elite, rather than support Vargas Llosa, who was considered a pituco-a derogatory Peruvian term for someone from the upper class who is snooty and pretentious...
...As the son of Japanese migrants, Fujimori was seen by many Peruvians as simple and hard-working like themselves...
...Fujimori has also developed a personal and direct style of relating to the poor by assiduously cultivating his Fujimori, wearing traditional image as a "common man...
...On other occasions, he has interrupted his speeches to jump on a bicycle, mount a donkey, or climb onto a tractor...
...He asks the people to let him do his work, and in return, he asks for their approval and trust...
...Frequent T.V...
...In visits to Lima shantytowns and rural Andean villages, he has been known to tease the crowd by pretending to throw water at them...
...In the first few years of his presidency, when the Shining Path insurgency was at its peak, the media portrayed an active president traveling throughout the country, supervising public-works projects, and speaking directly to the people...
...After six years in office, Fujimori remains a widely popular president...
...If the law is an obstacle to his goals, Fujimori finds a way of getting around it, or he simply changes the rules in order to achieve his objectives...
...The flip side of this "doer" image is Fujimori's willingness to bypass laws and other legal norms that get in his way...
...Fujimori visited dozens of remote Andean villages in the "Fujimobile," a makeshift cart pulled along by a tractor...
...Over the past several decades, new social groups have emerged in Peru, including rural migrants who have adopted urban ways, known as "cholos," and a new "mestizo" middle class of first- and second-generation migrants who obtained professional degrees at state-funded universities...
...Fujimori's Popular Appeal Fujimori has also staged several "media events" to distract attention at particularly difficult moments...
...He is a "doer" who provides solutions by dint of his own hard work and dedication...
...Fujimori's speeches are laced with constant attacks against traditional politicians for being uninterested in the fate of ordinary Peruvians...
...Traditional parties have proven incapable of representing their interests and aspirations...
...He uses simple language to inform people of the work he has done and to outline his future plans...
...Fujimori's frequent visits to outlying areas have helped mold an image of him as an accessible, "hands-on" pres- campesino clothing, ident who "goes to the mi Festival in Ayacucho...
Vol. 30 • July 1996 • No. 1
