From communism to the radical right, chronicle of a political shift – Liberation

Fall 2021: Mario Vargas Llosa is elected to the French Academy, to the armchair of the deceased philosopher Michel Serres. The Peruvian writer, Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010is a prestige recruit. But his arrival among the « Immortals » arouses controversy. In a platform published by Releaseacademics share their « stupefaction » and denounce « An error, even a fault » Who « Pressing serious ethical problems » And « Ternit the image of France in Latin America ». Is that the novelist, Death in Lima this Sunday, April 13got closer at the end of his far right life and his main regional headliners, thus completing the radical political moult of a man who had first dreamed of the socialist revolution.

Activist in a communist cell at San Marcos University in Lima (he briefly joined the Communist Party in 1953), admirer of Jean-Paul Sartre, young Mario Vargas Llosa Enthuses the Cuban Revolutionwhich brings Fidel Castro to power in 1959. The writer visits him five times in Havana. « It was very difficult for a young Latin American who discovered in the 1950s social problems and racism not to see in socialism or communism the solution for a continent ravaged from start to finish by military dictatorships »he will say later. The rupture with the Castrist regime intervened at the turn of the 1970s. Shocked by Cuban support for the intervention of Soviet tanks in Prague and the repressive drift of power in Havana, Mario Vargas Llosa turns away from socialism and converts to liberalism, especially in the economic field.

His preferences soon switch to the supporters of the most unbridled neoliberalism. He praised American President Ronald Reagan and sings the praises of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. In 1990, when the « Iron Lady » left power after eleven years of anti -social policies, the writer sent him a bouquet of flowers, accompanied by a sweet word: « Madam, there are not enough words in the dictionary to thank you for what you have done for the cause of freedom. » It is also that year that the native of Arequipa presents himself in the presidential election in Peru, with his collective « Movement Liberté »,, Allied with two traditional right parties. Like his models in politics, the candidate offers a drop in public spending, the reduction in the number of civil servants and privatizations of public enterprises.

Beaten in the second round by Alberto Fujimorihe ceased all direct political activity in Peru but continues to intervene in the Latin American political debate. In 1995, he called for « Burry the past » of The military dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983) and marries the arguments of the defenders of the « Demons theory » According to which far -left groups are also responsible, because of the violence they have committed, for the advent of military dictatorships in Latin America. Long -standing columnist for the Spanish daily El Paíshe founded in 2002 a neoliberal reflection group, appeared in Spain where he now lives with the figures of the right, and used to announce his preferences upstream of the main electoral deadlines on the subcontinent.

With a constant: virulent anti-communism that pushes him to support anyone who opposes left-wing candidates, was it a representative of the extreme right. In Peru, in 2021, he campaigned for Keiko Fujimori, daughter of the former president Condemned for crimes against humanityherself accused of corruption, against the Marxist unionist Pedro Castillo concerning which he agitated the threat of the « Totalitarianism ». In Chile, a few months later, he called to vote to The far -right candidate José Antonio Kastnostalgic for the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, « Because no country has advanced in the world thanks to the models set up by the left » What does the future president Gabriel Boric represent – rather social democraticYet. Even in Brazil, in 2020, he ranked on the side of the outgoing president Jair Bolsonaro, herald of the Latin American far right. «  »Even if he has a buffoon side, it’s not Lula ”, he explained.