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The Death and Rebirth of a Party System, Peru 1978-2001

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The Death and Rebirth of a Party System, Peru 1978-2001 ARTICLE10.1177/0010414003258108COMPARATIVEKenney / DEATH POLITICAL AND REBIRTH STUDIES OF A P/ARTY December SYSTEM 2003 THE DEATH AND REBIRTH OF A PARTY SYSTEM, PERU 1978-2001 CHARLES D. KENNEY University of Oklahoma This article evaluates structural, institutional, and actor-centered explanations of the collapse of the Peruvian party system around 1990 and its surprising partial recovery in 2001. It begins by describing the changes in the dependent variable, the emergence, collapse, and partial resurrec- tion of the 1980s Peruvian party system. The next section examines the argument that the large size and rapid growth of the informal sector undermined the party system and led to its collapse. The author shows that the evidence does not support this argument. The article then examines changes in the electoral system. The author demonstrates that, contrary to theoretical expecta- tions, the changes in the electoral system do not correlate with the observed changes in the party system. The final section shows that performance failure by political elites, including corruption in government, was more important than social cleavages or electoral institutions in the collapse and partial recovery of the party system. Keywords: party systems, electoral systems, informal sector, Peru Lima is proof that there are no knowable limits to what people will put “up with” (Guillermoprieto, 1990). So wrote a visiting journalist in 1990 when inflation spiraled out of control, production plummeted, and thousands of Peruvians were being murdered in political violence that some feared was a precursor to genocide. Less noticed amid the chaos and carnage of late- 1980s Peru were the death throes of the party system that had dominated Peruvianpolitics duringthe previous decade. In1990 the party system showed signs of exhaustion when Alberto Fujimori’s electoral tsunami washed away the familiar political landscape. By the end of Fujimori’s first term in office, not a party remained from the 1980s that was capable of seri- AUTHOR’S NOTE: I would like to thank Michael Coppedge, Robert Cox, and two anony- mous reviewers for their helpful comments.Some parts of this article analyzing the break - down of the Peruvian party system are developed at greater length in Charles D.Kenney, Fujimori’s Coup and the Breakdown of Democracy in Latin America, University of Notre Dame Press, forthcoming. COMPARATIVE POLITICAL STUDIES, Vol. 36 No. 10, December 2003 1210-1239 DOI: 10.1177/0010414003258108 © 2003 Sage Publications 1210 Downloaded from cps.sagepub.com at UNIV OF OKLAHOMA on January 20, 2016 Kenney / DEATH AND REBIRTH OF A PARTY SYSTEM 1211 ously contesting power. Rarely have party systems collapsed so completely and quickly. A decade later Peruvians witnessed another amazing event, as the Fujimori regime suddenly collapsed and politicians and parties long thought dead sprang to life. The return of the 1980s politicians was even more astonishing giventhe thoroughnesswith which they had beendestroyed over the previous 10 years. The so-called traditional parties that together received more than 90% of the presidential vote in the 1980s won less than 7% of the presidential vote in1995 andless than2% in2000. Manywere surprised, then,whencan - didates associated with these parties wonmore than50% of the presidential first-round vote in 2001. The unexpected collapse and the surprising partial resurrection of the 1980s parties provide an opportunity to reexamine our understanding of the forces that shape party systems. Canthe dramatic changesobserved inPeru best be explained by changes in the social cleavages underlying parties, by the role played by political institutions, or by the way political elites shape the party system?1 This article argues that the collapse and partial rebirth of Peru’s party system was due far more to the actions of elites and the judgment of voters than to structural or institutional causes. The article begins by describing changes in the dependent variable and then examines explana- tions focusing on structures, institutions, and political elites. WHAT HAPPENED: THE RISE, COLLAPSE, AND PARTIAL RESURRECTION OF A PARTY SYSTEM The 1980s party system was born in the 1978 Constitutional Assembly and 1980 general elections that ended more than a decade of military rule. By late 1980 four political forces had emerged that dominated politics for the rest of the decade: the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA), Popular Action (AP), the Popular Christian Party (PPC), and the United Left (IU). APRA already had a storied career stretching back five decades when it gained a plurality of the seats in the 1978 Constitutional Assembly. Over- coming the death of its founding leader in 1979, APRA emerged as a leading center-left party inthe 1980s. AP was APRA’s primary rival inthe 1960s and 1980s, winning the presidency after military rule in 1963 and again in 1980. 1. See Mainwaring (1999, pp. 21-22) and Tanaka (1998, pp. 24-33) on structural, institu- tional, and elite explanations of party system change. On the collapse of the Peruvian party sys- tem, see Carrión, 1998; Cotler, 1995; Lynch, 1999; McClintock, 1994; Planas, 1996, 2000; Roberts, 1999; Tantaleán, 1996; Tuesta Soldevilla, 1995. Downloaded from cps.sagepub.com at UNIV OF OKLAHOMA on January 20, 2016 1212 Table 1 Electoral Competition in Peru, 1978-2001 1978 1980 1985 1990 1992 1995 2000 2001 Downloaded from % of % of % of % of % of % of % of % of Assembly Lower House Lower House Lower House CCD Congressional Congressional Congressional Party and Alliance Votes Seats Votes Seats Votes Seats Votes Seats Votes Seats Votes Seats Votes Seats Votes Seats a cps.sagepub.com AP Abst. Abst. 38.9 54.4 8.4 5.6 — (14.4) Abst. Abst. 3.3 3.3 2.5 2.5 4.2 2.5 PPC 23.8 25.0 9.6 5.6 11.1 6.7 — (13.9)a 9.8 10.0 3.1 2.5 — — — — Libertad —— —————(5.0)a Abst. Abst. — — — — — — FREDEMO — — — — — — 30.1 34.4b ————— — —— c atUNIV OFOKLAHOMA onJanuary 20,2016 FIM —————— 3.9 7.1 8.8 4.9 5.0 7.6 7.5 11.0 9.2 Renovación ———— ———— 7.17.53.02.5———— Avancemos ———— ———— ————3.12.5—— Solidaridad Nacional — — — — ———— ————4.04.2—— Unidad Nacional — — — — ———— —————— 13.814.2 Right 23.8 25.0 48.5 60.0 19.5 12.3 30.1 38.3 24.0 26.3 14.3 13.3 17.2 16.7 29.0 25.9 FOCEP 12.3 12.0 1.7 0.0 ———— —————— —— PCP/UI 5.9 6.0 3.4 1.1 ———— —————— —— PSR + UDP 11.2 10.0 4.3 1.7 ———— —————— —— UNIR Abst. Abst. 4.7 1.1 ———— —————— —— PRT ——4.21.7———— —————— —— APS 0.6——————————— —— IU — — — — 24.4 26.7 10.0 8.9 Abst. Abst. 1.9 1.7 — — — — IS ——————5.32.2 Abst. Abst. — — — — — — MDI ———————— 5.55.0———— —— Left 29.4 28.0 18.9 5.6 24.4 26.7 15.3 11.1 5.5 5.0 1.9 1.7 — — — — APRA 35.3 37.0 26.5 32.2 50.1 59.4 25.0 29.4 Abst. Abst. 6.5 6.7 5.5 5 19.7 23.3 C90/NM — — — — — — 16.5 17.8 49.6 55.0 52.1 55.8 42.2 43.3 4.8 2.5 UPP — — — — — — — — — — 14.0 14.2 2.6 2.5 4.1 5.0 Perú Posible ———— ———— ——4.24.223.224.226.337.5 Somos Peru ———— ———— ————7.26.75.83.3 Downloaded from Other parties 11.6 10.0 6.1 2.2 5.9 1.7 13.0 3.5 20.8 13.8 7 4.1 2.2 1.7 10.3 2.5 Total 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 Source: Oficina Nacional de Procesos Electorales (http://www.onpe.gob.pe); Tuesta Soldevilla, 2001. Note: Abst. = abstained; AP = Popular Action; PPC = Popular Christian Party; FREDEMO = Democratic Front; FIM = Independent Moralizing Front; FOCEP cps.sagepub.com = Worker Peasant Student and Popular Front; PCP = Peruvian Communist Party; UI = Unity of the Left; PSR = Revolutionary Socialist Party; UDP = Popular Democratic Unity; UNIR = Union of the Revolutionary Left; PRT = Revolutionary Party of the Workers; APS = Socialist Political Action; IS = Socialist Left; MDI = Democratic Movement of the Left; APRA = American Popular RevolutionaryAlliance; C90/NM = Change 90/New Majority; UPP = Union for Peru. a. The seats in parentheses are part of the total of 34.4% of the seats belonging to FREDEMO. atUNIV OFOKLAHOMA onJanuary 20,2016 b. Includes SODE’s 2 seats (1.1%). c. Tuesta does not disaggregate FIM’s vote total from the category of “others” in the 1990 elections. 1213 1214 COMPARATIVE POLITICAL STUDIES / December 2003 Reformist inthe 1960s, AP was perceived as a party of the moderate right in the 1980s. The PPC, somewhat farther to the right, benefited from AP’s boy- cott of the constitutional assembly to become the second-largest party there, and in 1980 it formed a governing alliance with AP.On the left, a multitude of parties vied for power separately in the 1978 Constitutional Assembly and the 1980 general elections before forming an electoral front—the IU—that held together for most of the decade. Together, these four political forces accounted for well over 90% of the legislative and presidential votes until the 1990 elections. Although this party system never became well institutionalized,2 its col- lapse stunned most observers. In retrospect, we can see that the collapse took place inthree stages: 1987-1989, 1989-1990, and1992-1995. Between1987 and 1989 the system began to show its weakness as the two leaders with the best chance of becoming president in 1990 sought alternatives to the existing parties. Onthe right, Mario Vargas Llosa’s dissatisfactionwith the existing parties led him to found the Freedom Movement (Libertad) in 1987, although he subsequently formed an electoral alliance with AP and the PPC.
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