The triumphs of Julio Chávez and Enrique Valderrama in the primaries of Acción Popular and APRA, respectively, announced a democratizing process that has been developing within both traditional parties.
The two candidates share some symptomatic characteristics. Chávez (44) and Valderrama (38) are young people who have moved from the periphery to the very epicenter of their respective parties. They did not know the patriarchs or the founders intimately. They do not belong to the aristocracy of the group nor do they have surnames of party lineage. They did not come under the protective wing of some historical hierarch. Quite the opposite: they faced the old barons of each brotherhood. And they prevailed in their own way.
Like any democratization process, this has implied its consequent ‘mediocratization’. By expanding citizen participation and massifying access to party power, it has inevitably become trivialized. We are not dealing with the most gifted students or the most powerful debaters. Nor before the most charismatic candidates, politically speaking. But perhaps before the most representative ones, with all that that implies. Those who embody post-Castillo Peru, a country where campaigns are no longer won with rallies, academic records or oratory contests. They are won, yes, with new faces and old tricks, the kind that have abounded in the primaries of both parties. But after the internal victory, the political game had to take precedence and, therefore, the star runs the risk of following the path of the lamp and being left out of the race. Because reality has been showing both candidates that it is not enough to reissue old plays behind a youthful face. We also need a political wrist, the kind that Belaunde and Alan had plenty of to maintain discipline at the bases.
