Alan García

Alan Gabriel Ludwig García Pérez (; 23 May 1949 – 17 April 2019) was a Peruvian politician who served as President of Peru for two non-consecutive terms from 1985 to 1990 and from 2006 to 2011. He was the second leader of the Peruvian Aprista Party and to date the only party member ever to have served as President. Mentored by the founder of the APRA, Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, he served in the Constituent Assembly of 1978–1979. Elected to the Peruvian Congress in 1980, he rose to the position of General Secretary of the APRA in 1982, and was subsequently elected to the presidency in 1985 in a landslide victory at the age of 35 years.

García's first presidential term was marked by a severe economic crisis, social unrest and violence. At the conclusion of his first presidency, he was accused and investigated for corruption and illicit enrichment. In 1992, he filed for asylum following president Alberto Fujimori's self-coup, and exiled himself with his family in Colombia and France for the next nine years. In the aftermath of Fujimori's downfall, he made a surprising political comeback as he ran for the presidency in 2001, although he lost in the second round to Alejandro Toledo. In 2006, he was elected to the presidency for a second term, a feat considered an unexpected political resurrection based on the negative legacy of his first term.

Throughout Garcia's second term, Peru experienced a steady economy, becoming the fastest growing country in Latin America in 2008, surpassing China in terms of rising GDP. The economic success of his presidency would be acclaimed as a triumph by world leaders, and poverty was reduced from 48% to 28% nationally. In addition, Peru signed free trade agreements with the United States and China during García's presidency, but accusations of corruption would persist throughout his term and beyond. He was succeeded by his former 2006 run-off rival Ollanta Humala in 2011. He withdrew from party politics after failing to advance to the second round of the 2016 general election, placing fifth in his bid for a record third presidential term under the Popular Alliance coalition between his party and the Christian People's Party, which included former rival Lourdes Flores as one of his running mates.

On 17 April 2019, García died from a self-inflicted gunshot to the head as police officers under a prosecutor's orders were preparing to arrest him over matters relating to the Odebrecht scandal. He was transferred to a hospital in serious condition, where he remained for more than three hours in an operating room, during which he suffered three cardiorespiratory arrests before his death.

García is considered one of the most controversial yet talented politicians of Peru's contemporary history. He was known as an immensely charismatic orator.

Early life

Born in the Maison de Santé Clinic of the Barranco District into a middle-class family, García met his father for the first time when he was five due to his father's imprisonment for being a member of the Peruvian Aprista Party. His mother founded the party's base in the Camaná Province of the Arequipa Region. From a very young age, he accompanied his father to party meetings and became acquainted with future leaders of the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA), such as Luis Alva Castro and Mercedes Cabanillas. At 14, he was already an immensely talented orator when he first gave a speech in honour of party founder Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, whom he admired and followed until his death.

García studied law, first at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and later earning a bachelor's degree from the National University of San Marcos in 1971. A year later, he left Peru for Spain, where he pursued a doctoral degree in constitutional law under the guidance of Manuel Fraga. For years García claimed to have earned the degree; in 2014, however, documents from the university proved he never finished the work for it. In 1974, he moved to France with other members of the APRA to study at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University Paris 3 and the Institut des Hautes Etudes de l´Amérique latine (IHEAL). After earning a diploma in sociology from IHEAL, he was called by Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre to come back to Peru in order to run for the Constituent Assembly election in 1978. García was elected a Member of the Assembly, where he impressed his colleagues with his oratory and skillful rhetoric. As APRA's Secretary of Organization, he was assigned to conduct the party's public affairs in the wake of Haya de la Torre's death in 1979.

From his first marriage, García had one daughter, Carla, who is also active in Peruvian politics. With his second wife Pilar Nores, from whom he separated in 2010, García had four children. He also had another child from an extramarital affair with economist Roxanne Cheesman.

Already recognized as a young leader with a bright future in the country, he was elected to Congress in 1980. Two years later, he was elected General Secretary of the Peruvian Aprista Party. He was elected to serve as president of the Republic in the 1985 general elections.

First presidency (1985–1990)

García won the presidential election on 14 April 1985 with 45% of the votes. Since he did not receive the 50% of the votes required for a first-round victory, a run-off was scheduled between him and Alfonso Barrantes (the former mayor of Lima) of the United Left party. Barrantes, however, withdrew and decided not to enter the run-off, saying he did not want to prolong the country's political uncertainty. García was thus declared President on 1 June and officially took power on 28 July 1985. For the first time in its sixty-year history, the APRA party came to power in Peru. Aged 36, García was dubbed "Latin America's Kennedy", becoming the region's youngest president at the time, and the second youngest president in Peruvian history (the youngest was Juan Crisostomo Torrico in 1842, aged 34).

His economic policy was based on APRA's initial anti-imperialist values with García distancing Peru from international markets, resulting in lower investment in the country. Despite his initial popularity among voters, García's term in office was marked by bouts of hyperinflation, which reached 7,649% in 1990 and had a cumulative total of 2,200,200% over the five years, which destabilized the Peruvian economy. Foreign debt under García's administration increased to $19 billion by 1989. Owing to this chronic inflation, the Peruvian currency, the sol, was replaced by the inti in February 1985 (before his presidency began), which itself was replaced by the nuevo sol ("new sun") in July 1991, at which time the new sol had a cumulative value of one billion (1,000,000,000) old soles.

According to studies by the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics and the United Nations Development Programme, around the start of his presidency, 41.6% of Peruvians lived in poverty. During his presidency, this percentage increased by 13% (to 55%) in 1991. García also made an attempt to nationalise the banking and insurance industries. The International Monetary Fund and the financial community recoiled after García's administration unilaterally declared a limit on debt repayment equal to 10% of the Gross National Product, thereby isolating Peru from international financial markets.

His presidency was marked by world-record hyperinflation with the annual rate exceeding 13,000 percent per year. The administration devastated the local economy as well as all governmental institutions. Hunger, corruption, injustice, abuse of power, partisan elitism, and social unrest raised to dramatic levels spreading throughout the whole nation due to García's misdeeds and incompetence, spurring terrorism. The economic turbulence exacerbated social tensions and contributed in great part to the rise of the violent Maoist rebel movement known as the Shining Path, which launched the internal conflict in Peru and began attacking electrical towers, causing a number of blackouts in Lima. The period also saw the emergence of the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA). The García administration unsuccessfully sought a military solution to the growing terrorism, allegedly committing human rights violations, which are still under investigation. These include the Accomarca massacre, where 47 campesinos were gunned down by armed forces in August 1985; the Cayara massacre

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