Fuji Phone Home
by Noam Lupu

Every politician knows one surefire way to win public support without a viable policy platform: nationalism. Stoking the embers of patriotism not only unifies the public against some enemy, real or imagined; it also makes you the hero. Just look at President Bush's approval rating before and after the wave of patriotism following Sept. 11. And that's precisely the strategy being pursued this week by Alberto Fujimori, Peru's former strongman president and now a presidential hopeful-in-exile.

Fujimori was president of Peru from 1990 to 2000. In 1992, after two years of attempting to negotiate his pro-market economic policies with a Congress he did not control, Fujimori essentially staged a coup d'etat against himself. He dissolved Congress and had a new constitution written that gave sweeping powers to the president. Despite all this, Fujimori was enormously popular, credited with capturing the leader of the Shining Path guerrilla group in 1992 (in fact, hardly his doing) and with fixing an abysmal economic situation (which could have only gotten better from 7,650 percent inflation in 1990). But when Fujimori's vast empire of bribery was revealed in 2000, he high-tailed it to Tokyo (where his parents were born) and resigned from the presidency via fax.

Now Fujimori wants a comeback. Never mind that criminal charges ranging from corruption to homicide (for his role in the killing of 25 suspected Shining Path guerrillas) to crimes against humanity have been filed against him in Peru, or that he has been barred from political office until 2011. Fujimori has said he plans to run in Peru's presidential elections in April 2006, and recent polls put him in third place. Earlier this year, he launched a soft drink called Fuji-Cola to help finance his campaign.

But two obstacles remain to Fujimori's triumphant return: those pesky indictments and insufficient public support. And as of earlier this week it seems Fujimori is playing one against the other. On Monday, Fujimori showed up unexpectedly in the Chilean capital to launch his campaign back to Lima. Chilean officials promptly arrested him, but the international warrant for his arrest has to be processed by Chilean courts to be valid there.

While the Chilean legal processes ensues, Fujimori is cashing in. Peru, Bolivia and Chile have been at odds ever since the War of the Pacific (1879-1884) when Chile took over disputed, resource-rich territory on the Pacific coast. In 2003, Bolivia's president was forced to resign after signing a deal to build a gas pipeline through Chile. Peruvians are just as easily provoked into anti-Chilean nationalism. In fact, the Peruvian Congress last week moved to claim some of Chile's coastal waters in its own attempt to inflame nationalist emotions.

By giving himself over to Chilean authorities, Fujimori becomes a martyr in the hundred year-old conflict. If Chile extradites him to Peru, he'll make any future trials look like Chilean imperialism subjugating the rightful leader of Peru. If Chile refuses to extradite him and tries him there, he'll become the most popular Peruvian alive.

Fujimori's strategy takes a page from the growing list of politicians turning to nationalism to shore up public support. President Bush, who was very unpopular in the summer of 2001, milked Sept. 11 and the war on terror for all they were worth an incumbent president seeking reelection. Not only did Sept. 11 catapult Bush to his highest approval ratings, his popularity also grew each time the terror alert was raised. And polls suggest Bush won reelection primarily on the basis of the terror threat.

Closer to home for Fujimori, Argentina has seen its share of nationalist leaders. In 1982, its military government attempted to win back support by invading Britain's Falkland Islands, which Argentina has claimed since the nineteenth century. Argentina's current president, Néstor Kirchner, has spent his entire first term in office rallying Argentines against one or another external enemy — the International Monetary Fund, foreign bondholders, foreign utility companies. Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, following in the footsteps of his mentor, Fidel Castro, rouses his popular base with claims (not entirely unfounded, it seems) that the CIA plans to assassinate him.

The problem is that patriotism eventually fades, and raw emotion eventually gives way to pragmatism. Once you win the election and wage the war, the reality of governing sets in. It's easy to be a rabble-rouser as long as you're on the outside. Argentina lost the Falkland Islands war (when Margaret Thatcher decided to use the conflict to win her own popularity), leading to the fall of the discredited military regime. Despite insistently claiming that he's a wartime president, Bush is now foundering in low approval ratings as domestic issues — from hurricanes to leak scandals — take center-stage (along with the quagmire in Iraq). Chávez and Kirchner are still having success with their nationalist rhetoric, but mostly because high oil prices and high world demand are keeping their economies afloat. Once the world economy slows — as it likely will — they'll have to maintain their popularity through actual policies or risk falling out of favor.

Fujimori too will ultimately face this challenge. He has few, if any, policy proposals for Peru's future. If he does manage to become president — either in 2006 or in 2011 — Fujimori will find the nationalism card to expire quickly. Peru's economy has been growing, but slowly, and the government seems unable to balance its books. The Shining Path began rearing its head again in 2003, and the Peruvian government can barely afford to increase its police forces to fight back.

Blaming Chile won't fix either problem. And if Fujimori fails to come up with good policies once in office, he'll eventually suffer the fate of every politician who thinks you can govern through nationalism and fear — ignominy.

E-mail Noam Lupu at noam at flakmag dot com.