Elections in Peru

Early October there were local elections in Peru. Here are a few remarks on and after the campaign.

A typical way to do politics in Peru seems to makie a picture of a candidate, put a giant poster on a 4*4 and drive around town with loud speakers.
A typical program is to announced a huge list of new projects/buildings never mentioning how to finance them. Next to this program even Chirac would soumd like a serious politician.
Shows of supporters are sometimes arranged by giving money for people to show up at rallyes.
Everyone denounces corruption but the vast majority of incumbents is corrupted. SOme candidates give themselves the title engineer or doctor to appear more serious (and to impress uneducated people) even if they have made no studies.
Corruption plagues Peruvian politics. A candidate said that 30% of all budgets disappear because of  corruption and some people estimate the reality to be higher than this.
A candidate in a rough neighbourhood fakes to have been shot (in his car) by people paid by its opponent.
On election day and even on the day before, alcohol is prohibited. This is the same in all South American countries. My Chilean friend explained to me that on election day in the past in Chile there were gatherings where a candidate would give free alcohol and at the end of teh day would ask the people to go and vote for him.
A few days after the elections, among many accusations of rigged elections, there was one case near Cusco where people went to burn down the house of the winning candidate becase they said he was corrupted.
In Maras where I taught, the corrupted mayor lost the elections. He decided to cut the budget for the teacher of computing for the school as a retaliation because the Head of teh school had never been a supporter of him.
A you can see Peru is a democracy but it has some flaws...