You Can’t Tune Out this Revolution

In the sunny city of Casma, a provincial capital on Peru’s northern Central coast, there is no rest before the upcoming political elections. Normally you would expect that political candidates are exhausting themselves by shaking hands, kissing babies, and making promises. But in Casma it’s the constituents who get no rest. Political campaigns in Peru are heavily mediated and constitute an unavoidable presence during election cycles.

While many people here have televisions, cable, or satellite dishes, political campaigns are waged in an open-air format. Walls are painted with huge, colorful murals depicting a candidate’s name, the office for which they are running, and a big, simple logo crossed out with a thin ‘X’ (image below). Confusing to the foreigner, the ‘X’ isn’t part of a subtle smear campaign, but rather instructs even the illiterate precisely how to vote. Crossing out a logo on the ballot is a vote for that party. The most omnipresent form of campaigning, however, is the use of loudspeakers to blast party music, promises, and a familiar repertoire of popular songs in order to make sure that no one sleeps on a promising candidate.

In the early afternoon Casma is typically a sleepy, quiet place. About 225 miles north of Lima, Peru’s capital city, Casma is a hard-working town that straddles the Panamerican Highway. Surrounded by expansive agricultural fields where asparagus, avocados, passion fruit, and mangos are grown for export, Casma serves as the financial and judicial hub of the coastal region of Peru’s Ancash department (kind of like an American or Mexican state). Casmeños (as people from Casma are called) perhaps unknowingly follow Ben Franklin’s advice for wealth and health. They get up early and go to bed at a reasonable hour. Whether they work in the fields, or own them, or run the banks, loan agencies, or notaries that service the agricultural industry, Casmeños never fail to rest for a few hours in the early afternoon before returning to work from 4 to 8pm. However, during this election cycle, things are different.

It’s not even 4 yet and a hip-hop song sampling the infectious twang from Missy Elliot’s “Get Ur Freak On” informs me to “…marca asi, por la bandera.” I should “…mark the flag, just like this.” In other words, when I go to the polls, I should cast my vote by putting an ‘X’ through the red and white flag that represents the political party Movimiento Nuevo Izquierda. This endless barrage of propaganda is clearly effective, as I can’t get it out of my head. What’s interesting about the intensity and techniques of campaigning in Peru is that voting is obligatory. Unlike the United States where candidates must not only earn people’s votes, but also convince them to vote, in Peru everyone over 18 is required to vote. So if voting is obligatory, why all the noise?

I asked a few members of the Movimiento Nueva Izquierda what all the noise was about. Laughingly, Guido Luna, a candidate for the local cabinet, turned the question around on me. Resting his hand on a three-wheeled motorized rickshaw fitted with two huge loudspeakers (image below) blaring party propaganda he asked, “Elections aren’t like this in the United States?” Guido explained that they use these off road tricycles to broadcast propaganda in places where people may not get to see television ads. Indeed, much of the area’s population lives away from city amenities, at the edges of the rocky hills that emerge from the green Casma River valley. While some of these villages have only recently received electricity, it seems that most everyone has a TV.

Lucho Muriel explains that there’s more to it than supplementing television. He is running for mayor of Casma with the political party Fuerza 2011. Fuerza 2011’s main candidate is Keiko Fujimori, daughter of imprisoned ex-president Alberto Fujimori, who will run for president in next year’s elections. While everyone agrees that the countryside’s vote is important, Lucho explains that there are other reasons for taking drastic measures in publicity. He explained that circulating loudspeakers and parades of chanting supporters are extremely important in demonstrating a candidate’s ability to motivate people. He explained, “I can say to someone ‘look, I’ll give you 10 nuevos soles (less than $4US) if you do a lap around the whole town chanting my name. I’ll get 50 people to do that and everyone will see this and think ‘man, Lucho gets people moving.’”

He asked me “when you go to the poll, are you going to vote for the guy who’s got the crowd, or the other guy?” There is a logic to this that echoes ancient political practices of populism and patronage described by scholars of Andean prehistory. I asked if it wasn’t the case that another candidate could buy the same crowd.” “Sure,” he said, “and they do. But it doesn’t matter. One way or the other, when voters see you motivating people they don’t care why, they just know you can get things done.”

It’s important to get things done before the election in Peru because elections really can be a revolution. Individual candidates don’t just take office when they’re elected. They bring in entire government structures. The old administration, from municipal workers to administrators, may be fired and replaced with members of the new party (except for some concessions to runners-up). In a highly bureaucratic country like Peru, an enduring gift from the colonial era, a change in administration really can be a revolution. So buying crowds to convince the masses is as much a political strategy as it is preemptive proof of one’s political power.

Recently a locally famous singer of the traditional huayno music style staged a performance right in the middle of Casma’s main northbound street (which is, in fact, part of the Panamerican Highway). Right next to the recently renovated San Martin Park, traffic was stopped for nearly four hours while Sonia Morales sang in support of her husband, a candidate in the upcoming elections, so loudly that the windows in nearby buildings rattled and the floor of my hotel room shook. The seismic nature of this rally struck me; perhaps volume may be just as important as the message here. The candidate who shouts loudest is most likely to be heard. But something else occurred to me as strange. During this political concert plenty of people gathered before the stage, but very few were dancing. It wasn’t like a concert at all. I wondered if, despite all the fanfare, people weren’t hungry for some clear, concrete explanations of political platforms. Maybe they wanted a debate more than a concert.

Travel is valuable for revealing to us how things might otherwise be in our own country. I wonder, for example, if political campaigns in the United States would be more like those in Casma if we had more than two viable parties. In other words, perhaps the political cacophony here is a tolerable correlate to actually having options at the ballot. In any case, Election Day in Peru is October 3rd, and from what I’m told things will only intensify. It’s hard to imagine louder concerts or more numerous political parades. Perhaps the main square will once again be transformed into a stage, this time for candidates to explain their positions. And it will be interesting to see what happens after the election. Will administrative change be the revolution everyone says it will be, or will life go on as normal? Recalling the fallout after recent elections in other parts of the world, I asked a Casmeño if election results brought chaos and rioting. “No,” he explained, “things here are pretty tranquil after elections.” Maybe all the pre-election activity is a safety-valve for potential disorder. After all the noise, maybe people just need a rest.