How Mario Blew It

From the start, Mario Vargas Llosa was a most reluctant presidential candidate. "When politics invade, the writer dies," he mused before entering the fray. Disgusted with the political infighting among his supporters, he withdrew, but then re-entered the race, convinced that his country needed an incorruptible leader.

An admirer of Margaret Thatcher's unfettered capitalism in Britain, Vargas Llosa offered Peru a fiscal shock treatment to cure the economic troubles that have cut the average Peruvian's standard of living in half since 1985. At first his message won a broad following. Polls showed the novelist winning nearly 50% of the votes, and the only discussion seemed to be about whether he would get a majority in the first round and avoid a runoff election. Mark Malloch Brown, one of his U.S. consultants, said the early, seemingly unbeatable lead "made us lower our guard."

Another problem was that the candidate did not wear well with the masses. Rich from his writings, Vargas Llosa is a member of Peru's white elite and addicted to Savile Row suits from his long stays in London. And while his chief rival set out to campaign with kith and kin in a flatbed truck, Vargas Llosa toured the mountainous country in a private jet and chauffeured sedans. His speeches, said one pundit, "were models of awkward eloquence." That patrician style was unlikely to endear him to Peru's 10 million mostly poor, brown-skinned voters. Says Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto: "The capitalist vocabulary into which he lapsed became associated in people's minds with the old forms of exploitation."

Vargas Llosa also rankled the electorate by allying himself with traditional party bigwigs in the conservative Democratic Front. They spent at least $6.5 million on the election and inundated television screens with parliamentary campaign ads that made the presidential candidate look like part of the old oligarchy.

After the election results were announced, Vargas Llosa withdrew into an inner circle of family members, who serve as his closest political advisers. At his villa overlooking the Pacific, the badly wounded writer discussed whether to bow out of the election gracefully or keep fighting. He had a third choice, of course. He could write a novel about a successful author who fails at politics.