Populist Seduction in Latin America. Carlos de la Torre

are the role of Sánchez Cerro in putting an end to Leguía’s rule and Gaitán’s defense of the United Fruit banana workers massacred in 1929.

      According to Willner, perceptions of the personal attributes of the leader are the second element of charismatic leadership. In racist societies in which elites treasured their whiteness, the dark complexions—and mestizo origins—of Gaitán and Sánchez Cerro in themselves represented a challenge to traditional social caste relations. Thus APRA’s insults about Sánchez Cerro’s mestizo features in the electoral campaign of 1930–31 backfired because the triumph of someone who physically resembled them was very important for common people. Herbert Braun (1985) argues that Gaitán presented his physical appearance as a challenge to the political norms of the Convivencia. His teeth were symbols of animal aggression, his dark skin represented the feared malicia indígena (Indian wickedness). In sum, the image of “el negro Gaitán” as a threat to “decent society” pervaded the press, electoral posters, and caricatures. In addition, in contrast to the cleanliness and serenity of his opponents, during his speeches Gaitán sweated, shouted, and growled, promoting an atmosphere of intimacy with his followers.

      Charismatic leaders invoke myths. Through metaphors they are assimilated into icons of their cultures (Willner 1984). The examples of Evita as the Mater Dolorosa and Velasco Ibarra and Haya de la Torre as Christ figures show the preeminence of religion in Latin America. Marysa Navarro characterizes the myth of Eva Perón in the following terms:

      Blond, pale, and beautiful, Evita was the incarnation of the Mediator, a Virgin-like figure who despite her origins, shared the perfection of the Father because of her closeness to him. Her mission was to love infinitely, give herself to others and ‘burn her life’ for others, a point made painfully literal when she fell sick with cancer and refused to interrupt her activities. She was the Blessed Mother, chosen by God to be near ‘the leader of the new world: Perón.’ She was the childless mother who became the Mother of all the descamisados, the Mater Dolorosa who ‘sacrificed’ her life so that the poor, the old, and the downtrodden could find some happiness. (1982, 62)

      What Navarro does not analyze is how such myths were generated. To understand the process of mythic construction of figures like Evita, it is essential to examine popular perceptions of them. Such images, interpretations, and meanings are contradictory—on the one hand liberating, on the other based on an uncritical acceptance of the leaders. Moreover, the visions and interpretations of subaltern groups are influenced by official discourses. For this reason, when studying populist myths one must take into account the fact that their meanings are multiple, and that official memory constitutes a reference point from which popular sectors interpret their experiences (Popular Memory Group 1982).

      MANICHAEAN DISCOURSE: EL PUEBLO VERSUS LA OLIGARQUÍA

      The publication of Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory (Laclau 1977) constituted a breakthrough in the study of Latin American populism. Discourse analysis was presented as an alternative to objectivist interpretations and a tool to understand the ambiguity of populism for the actors involved. Through an analysis of speeches and other written documents by political leaders, Ernesto Laclau examines the crisis of liberal discourse in Argentina and Perón’s ability to transform a series of criticisms of liberalism into a discourse in which the people confront the oligarchy. To explain the rhetorical appeal to the people, Laclau demonstrates how this category is linked to the discursive elaboration of a fundamental contradiction in the social formation: “the people versus the power bloc.” The particularity of populism is to be a discourse that articulates popular-democratic interpellations as antagonistic to the dominant ideology. These contradictions that cannot be processed within the system imply the possibility of a populist break. That is why Peronism, Maoism, and fascism are examples of populist ruptures.

      Laclau’s innovative work on populist discourse was partial. Although he shows the importance of studying the shared semantic field within which people struggle to impose their interpretations of a given moment, the analysis remains incomplete. The most common criticism of Laclau has been that he examines the conditions of only the production of discourses. One cannot assume that a politician’s discourse easily or automatically generates political identities. Given that not all discourses are accepted and that there are always competing discourses, it is necessary to take into account the conditions of production, circulation, and reception of political discourses (De Ípola 1979, 1983).

      Moreover, Laclau does not differentiate the analysis of political discourse from more general discourse analysis. Emilio De Ípola (1979, 949) suggests the following characteristics of political discourse: (1) its thematic is focused explicitly on the problem of the control of state power; (2) its objective is to refute and disqualify the opposing discourse; and (3) it includes a certain calculation or evaluation of its immediate political and ideological results. There are various kinds of political discourses: electoral speeches, government reports, speeches of representatives in congress, resolutions of party assemblies, and so on. To be successful, these discourses must be received as conforming to reality. Thus it is necessary to take into account the context within which such discourses are given. To understand the success or failure of political discourses, they must therefore be analyzed as events in which the expectations and actions of the audience are as important as the oration, gestures, and rituals of the speaker. Through a discussion of the discourses of Luis Sánchez Cerro, Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre, Jorge Eliecer Gaitán, Evita Perón, and Juan Domingo Perón, I shall analyze the characteristics of populist discourse as a special category of political discourse.

      Scholars of populism have demonstrated that political discourses differ from scientific discourses. Because the goal of political speeches is to motivate people to act, well-reasoned arguments are less useful than emotional appeals (Álvarez Junco 1990, 234). As José Álvarez Junco notes, political discourse “does not inform or explain, but persuades and shapes attitudes.… It responds to areas of disquiet and problems, it offers reassurance” (1987, 220). Similarly, Braun suggests that “to search for a clear line of argumentation in Gaitán’s more political speeches is to misunderstand them. The orations were designed for dramatic effect, not intellectual consistency” (1985, 100). Even Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre, whose political discourses had more substance, “urged those who did not understand the doctrine to ‘feel’ it” (Stein 1980, 164). More recently, when evaluating his electoral defeat in 1990 to Alberto Fujimori, Mario Vargas Llosa reached similar conclusions.

      The politician goes up onto the platform to charm, to seduce, to lull, to bill and coo. His musical phrasing is more important than his ideas, his gestures more important than his concepts. Form is everything: it can either make or destroy the content of what he says. The good orator may say absolutely nothing, but he says it with style. What matters to his audience is for him to sound good and look good. The logic, the rational order, the consistency, the critical acumen of what he is saying generally get in the way of his achieving that effect, which is attained above all through impressionistic images and metaphors, ham acting, fancy turn of phrase, and defiant remarks. The good Latin American political orator bears a much closer re semblance to a bullfighter or a rock singer than to a lecturer or a professor: his communication with the audience is achieved by way of instinct, emotion, sentiment, rather than by way of intelligence. (1995, 169)

      Populist discourse and rhetoric divide society into two ethically antagonistic fields: el pueblo and la oligarquía. These terms do not refer to precise social categories but rather to a series of social relations; thus it is essential to examine who is included and excluded by these terms in each specific case of populism. El pueblo is positively defined as all that is not oligarquía. Given their suffering, el pueblo is the incarnation of the authentic, the good, the just, and the moral. It confronts the antipueblo, or oligarquía, representing the unauthentic, the foreign, the evil, the unjust, and the immoral. The political becomes moral, even religious. For this reason, the political confrontation is total, without the possibility of compromise or dialogue.² The electoral campaigns of APRA and Sánchez Cerro in 1930 and 1931 illustrate the moralism, religiosity, and intransigence that characterize populist discourses.

      Aprismo was presented as a moral-religious crusade for the regeneration of the Peruvian. Aprista political meetings always included the party hymn, the Marsellesa Aprista: