Alan García, the "Caballo Loco", who has ended unpopular and cornered by corruption – 17/04/2019

"Patria querida, give me a president like Alan García", It was graffiti that abounded in Buenos Aires in 1985. Alan Garcia had just taken the place in Peru and was for Peronism the beacon of progressivism in Latin America. The youngest president in the region has turned 35 years old. Thirty-four years later, this promise the head was shot in his house in Lima persecuted for justice in the Odebrecht case. He died at the hospital on Wednesday.

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Alan García He was twice president. And he was one of the statesmen the most qualified in Peru expert in political resuscitation, he was cornered, at 69, by the ramifications of the Odebrecht corruption network which He splashed three other Peruvian exmandatarios.

In his last hours, Garcia struggled between life and death in a Lima hospital, after being shot in the head at a time when he was being detained. Many remembered their ability to survive and thought it would be one of those moments. But this time he could not.

"Only God and fools do not change"

Alan García

Former President of Peru

The headquarters of the investigation on Odebrecht began to reduce convincingly to Garcia's figure at the end of 2018, when failed in his attempt to obtain asylum in Uruguay to avoid prosecution investigation for alleged bribery.

In November, he had entered the Uruguayan Embbady in Lima, where he had sought asylum under the pretext of "political persecution", but Montevideo rejected your request and after 16 days, he had to go home.

It was the first time in a prolific political career of four decades that the Peruvian social democratic leader, ultimately very unpopular in his country, was facing judicial difficulties.

Born in Lima on May 23, 1949, his family life was just as risky. Father of six children from three different relationships, he also had a grandchild. He resided until last year between Lima and Madrid, where his current partner lived with his youngest son.

Despite the unpopularity that followed economic disaster of his first government (1985-1990), he again won the presidency in 2006 at the head of APRA, the oldest and strongest party in Peru.

In 2006, his re-election could be explained by the fact that his rival, the second round, was the military nationalist Ollanta Humala, identified with the Venezuelan president of the time, Hugo Chávez.

Garcia was the least evilsaid Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel laureate Peruvian.

Analysts have considered that his political resurrection it was also due to his extraordinary qualities of candidate that allowed him to thwart the ghosts of his first government and to show himself someone more relaxing and without those impulsive explosions that led to being called "Crazy Horse".

"Only God and fools do not change," said Garcia to strengthen his mea culpa and metamorphosispromote state intervention in the economy and engage in the free market.

His first leadership had left a nation in a deep economic and moral crisis. Its economic policy has been marked by severe control of the exchange rate, nationalization of the bank and annual inflation of more than 7,600% in 1990.

On the other hand, the terrorist violence of the Maoist group Sendero Luminoso reached its peak during its first government, accused of both inefficiency and excess in the fight against subversive, even with the formation of squads of death.

But these accusations, like the accusations of corruption that the government of Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) wanted to impose on him, were in vain.

Persecuted after the coup of Fujimori in 1992, Garcia applied for asylum in Colombia, then in France, and returned to Peru in 2001, after all charges against him. They had prescribed.

During his second presidency, from 2006 to 2011, he adapted to the neoliberal economy he had renegotiated in his first government and managed to erase the bad memories he had left behind.

However, the shadow of corruption followed him afteras then.

Polls showed in recent months that Alan Garcia was the most unpopular politician in Peru, a rejection of 80%.

AFP