The last 50 years Latin America has made substantial progress in the democratic area. We used to have almost all the continent or the militaries through a military coup. We have advanced enormously.
So the sky is bright in terms of democracy, at least formally. There is gray parts in that sky – Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, ahora [“now” in Spanish] Argentina. But we have made a lot of progress. Now, Cuba comes for a long time. But God is going to take care of a lot of them.
We have made progress. But democracy, again, without strong democratic institutions are very fragile. Number two, if democracy does not deliver concrete and measurable results to the poor, people will not believe in democracy. The last study that the United Nations made in Latin America asking whether they will they prefer a military regime or a democratic regimes, 54 percent prefer an authoritarian regimes provided that they give them jobs. So there’s a lot to be worked out. We cannot be complacent. Elections are not just to going to vote on an election day. We need to take care of it.
We need to build strong institutions, repeat, particularly on the presence of narcotrafficking. When narcotrafficking penetrates the most intimate fiber of a society, it’s really done. And it comes from Mexico all the way through Central America, has gotten to Peru, to Colombia, to Brazil. And there’s one country where they have to pay a big toll to pass the cocaine: Venezuela.
So we have a lot of work to do. That’s why I created this foundation [the Global Center for Development and Democracy (http://cgdd.org/)]. I have 21 former presidents and 17 personalities of the world. We have to continue working. I’m glad that there are institutions in the United States, as I just – the National Endowment for Democracy, the institute of the Republican Party [the International Republican Institute (IRI), which is independent of the U.S. Republican Party], the NDI [the National Democratic Institute, which is independent of the U.S. Democratic Party], independently of your own political differences that you might have, but in democracy.
So I see Latin America as a very promising continent for the next 10 or 50 years provided we are able to confront the challenges that I mentioned to you: the social part, the institutional component, the environmental issue, the cohesiveness and to fight narcoterrorism.
Now we need to begin distributing the benefits of economic growth, because otherwise people don’t feel it in their pocket and become angry. And that creates social conflict. And that social conflict can stop economic growth, because capital investment will not come if there is uncertainty, insecurity or changes of the rules of the game. When you don’t have economic, political, social, legal stability, I don’t know anything more cowardly in the world than a dollar or a Chinese currency or euro or real of Brazil. They go there where there is stability.
And so we have challenges. I see a very promising continent, but at the same time, we need to resolve a lot of the challenges that are there.
President Alejandro Toledo was the first person of Quechua decent to be elected president of Peru, serving from July 2001 to July 2006. Toledo grew up in a large, poverty-stricken family that struggled to support itself. As a young boy, Toledo saw the value of education and became involved in politics and journalism at the age of eleven.
In 2000, Toledo was a leading figure in the movement that toppled President Alberto Fujimori’s authoritarian regime. Following Fujimori’s controversial re-election, which was surrounded by fraud allegations, Toledo organized mass street protests that ultimately forced the President’s resignation. Toledo emerged victorious in Peru’s subsequent presidential election in April 2001.
As president, Toledo implemented policies to reduce poverty by investing in the country’s health and educational systems. As a result of sustained economic growth and deliberate social policies directed at assisting the poor, extreme poverty was reduced by 25 percent in five years.
Since leaving office, Toledo has continued to be a leading voice in international development. He recently founded the Lima-based Global Center for Development and Democracy; through this organization, Toledo works to promote sustainable democracies and economic self-sufficiency in the developing world.
The territory that is now Peru was the heart of the Inca Empire. In 1532, Spanish conquistadors conquered the Incas and established a colonial government. Peru obtained its independence from Spain in 1821.
For much of the 20th Century, Peru alternated between periods of democracy and military rule. Beginning in 1980, a Marxist terrorist group known as Sendero Luminoso (“Shining Path”) posed a persistent and severe challenge to the government. In 1990, Alberto Fujimori, a Japanese-Peruvian, was elected president. Once in office, Fujimori suspended the constitution and the legislature with the support of the Peruvian armed forces. The powers appropriated by Fujimori in this 1992 “auto-coup” enabled the government to largely eradicate the Sendero forces, but at great cost to Peruvian democracy and human rights.
In 2000, Fujimori ran for a third term, thanks to a questionable ruling by the electoral bodies in his favor. The elections were widely denounced as falsified, as Fujimori claimed a narrow victory over opposition candidate Alejandro Toledo. Embroiled in a corruption scandal and facing rising domestic and international opposition, Fujimori resigned and took up residence in Japan. He was later extradited back to Peru and convicted of a number of charges, including embezzlement and human rights violations.
New presidential elections were held in 2001 and won by Alejandro Toledo. Toledo was the first indigenous Peruvian to be elected as president and worked to restore democratic institutions and revive the economy. Since the restoration of democracy in 2001, Peru has held regular and democratic elections.