Conservatism in Peru

The weakness of political parties in Peruvian politics has been recognized throughout the nation's history, with competing leaders fighting for power following the collapse of the Spanish Empire's Viceroyalty of Peru.[5][6][7] The Peruvian War of Independence saw aristocrats with land and wealthy merchants cooperate to fight the Spanish Empire, though the aristocrats would later obtain greater power and lead an oligarchy headed by caudillos that defended the existing feudalist haciendas.[8] During the time of the Chincha Islands War, guano extraction in Peru led to the rise of an even wealthier aristocracy that established a plutocracy.[7] A wealthy oligarchy was then created that used candidate-based political parties to control economic interests; a practice that continues to the present day.[7] This oligarchy was supported by the Catholic Church, which would ignore inequalities in Peru and instead assist governments with appeasing the impoverished majority.[7] The education system in Peru was also created by the authoritarian governments of conservatives to segregate against indigenous Peruvians, instilling the belief of a hierarchal society and training indigenous groups to live their lives as peasants or soldiers.[9] Combatting ideologies of indigenismo of the majority and the elite holding Europhile values would arise at the end of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century.[10]

Through the early twentieth century, the Peruvian Armed Forces held political power in Peru.[11] Manuel A. Odría led a coup against José Luis Bustamante y Rivero in 1948, leading a far-right government until 1956.[12] Also in 1956, Fernando Belaúnde founded the center-right Acción Popular party. He would later become president in 1963 and held a doctrine called "The Conquest of Peru by Peruvians", which promoted the exploitation of resources in the Amazon rainforest and other outlying areas of Peru through conquest,[13] stating "only by turning our vision to the interior, and conquering our wilderness as the United States once did, will South America finally achieve true development".[14] In 1964 in an incident called the Matsé genocide, the Belaúnde administration targeted the Matsés after two loggers were killed, with the Peruvian armed forces and American fighter planes dropping napalm on the indigenous groups armed with bows and arrows, killing hundreds.[15][16] Belaúnde was removed from office by a military coup led by general Juan Velasco Alvarado in 1968.

Following the Tacnazo and subsequent overthrow of Velasco in 1975, Francisco Morales Bermúdez would lead the Revolutionary Government until 1980, with his military government participating in the political repression of leftists during Operation Condor.[17] During the Lost Decade of the 1980s and internal conflict, political parties became weaker once again.[18][19] Belaúnde was re-elected in 1980 and became even more conservative, bringing neoliberal reforms to Peru that were unsuccessful due to low commodity prices.[20] Angered with President Alan García's inability to combat the crises in the nation, the armed forces began planning a coup in the late 1980s known as Plan Verde; it involved the genocide of impoverished and indigenous Peruvians, the control or censorship of media in the nation and the establishment of a neoliberal economy controlled by a military junta in Peru.[21][22][23] Peruvians shifted their support for authoritarian leader Alberto Fujimori, who was supported by the military and made a figurehead leader of Peru following his win in the 1990 Peruvian general election.[18][19][24]

Former social democrat Alan García grew more conservative during his second tenure and took implementation of the Lima Consensus even further, adopting policies similar to Augusto Pinochet and combatting with indigenous groups opposed to mining in their communities, events culminating with the 2009 Peruvian political crisis that saw civilians against an oil development in the Amazon rainforest massacred.[25][26]

During the presidencies of Ollanta Humala, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Martín Vizcarra, Congress was dominated by the opposition Popular Force, the party created by the daughter of the former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, Keiko Fujimori, and opposed many of the actions performed by the presidents.[27][28][29] During the government of Pedro Castillo, conservative groups in Peru utilized social media to spread fake news and for the incitement of violence, especially on TikTok.[30]

The the far-right Spanish political party, Vox,[31] created the Madrid Charter in 2019 after consulting with the government of United States president Donald Trump.[32] Peruvian investigative journalism website OjoPúblico wrote in an article discussing far-right alliances in the Americas that members of Vox travelled to Peru to obtain signatures, with the parties Go on Country of Hernando de Soto, Popular Force of Keiko Fujimori, and Popular Renewal of Rafael López Aliaga signing the document.[33][34][35] Peruvian business executives, including the owner of Willax Televisión, also participated in discussions and signed the charter.[36][37]

In the 1990s, president Alberto Fujimori utilized terruqueos with the help of the National Intelligence Service to discredit those who opposed him, including dissenters from his own government, with political scientist Daniel Encinas saying that this would evolve into conservative politicians using the attack to target those opposed to Fujimori's neoliberal economic policies and that the right-wing used the terruqueo as a "strategy of manipulating the legacy of political violence".[38][39][40] Ultimately, a culture of fear was created by Fujimori according to Jo-Marie Burt, with individuals fearing that they would be described as a terrorist.[41] Using the terruqueo, according to Velásquez Villalba, Fujimori made himself a "permanent hero" and made left-wing ideologies an eternal enemy.[42] Using the terruqueo to frighten conservative individuals with a status quo bias, leftist and progressive groups, along with human rights groups, have been targeted with the tactic.[43]

Environmental degradation occurred in Peru since businesses take advantage of deregulation in order to attain more growth.[44][45] The conservative Congress of Peru refused to ratify the Escazú Agreement regarding environmental rights, arguing that it would violate the sovereignty of Peru and interfere with the economy.[46]

Hernando de Soto, the founder of one of the first neoliberal organizations in Latin America, Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD), began to receive assistance from Ronald Reagan's administration, with the National Endowment for Democracy's Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) providing his ILD with funding and education for advertising campaigns.[47][48][49] Between 1988 and 1995, de Soto and the ILD were mainly responsible for some four hundred initiatives, laws, and regulations that led to significant changes in Peru's economic system.[50][51]

The Lima Consensus as established during the Fujimori administration focused on deregulation and privatization with the goal of establishing a neoliberal economy.[52][53] As the Fujimori government began to implement their economic policy, his administration attempted to rewrite Peru's economic history, with Minister of the Economy Carlos Boloña inaccurately stating "during the three decades that preceded to date, populist, socialist or mercantilist ideas and governments exercised almost absolute predominance in our country".[54] The dismantling of political parties in the 1990s resulted with weaker newcoming politicians into the twenty first century since technocrats that existed in Fujimori's government would go on to promote the Consensus and dominate politics in Peru.[55] As the Washington Consensus lost popularity in the 2000s, a more defined Lima Consensus began to emerge in Peru simultaneously as the economy improved during the 2000s commodities boom.[56] The economic boom Peru experienced did not develop a stronger government however, with deregulation and privatization becoming more established due to the Consensus following the fall of the Fujimori government while elites supporting the Consensus gained veto power in the government.[57][58][59]

Consensus policies are supported by the economic elite and some of the middle class, with supporters advocating for deregulation, privatization and the removal of social programs.[60] This lack of state intervention as promoted by the Consensus has resulted with a weak government with poor performance, with many Peruvians experiencing insufficient basic services such as education, justice and security.[61][62]

• Arroyo Menéndez, Millán (2020). "Las causas del apoyo electoral a VOX en españa". Política y Sociedad. Madrid. 57 (3): 693–717. doi:10.5209/poso.69206. S2CID 241063503.
• Ferreira, Carles (2019). "Vox como representante de la derecha radical en España: un estudio sobre su ideología" [Vox as Representative of the Radical Right in Spain: A study of its Ideology]. Revista Española de Ciencia Política (in Spanish). 51 (51): 73–98. doi:10.21308/recp.51.03. ISSN 2173-9870.