Porcine of the times
Peru’s cartoonish presidential front-runner
In Rafael López Aliaga, or “Porky”, many voters see a man of action
Rooting for troublesPhotograph: ReutersNot many politicians would think it good for their brand to be compared to Porky Pig.
But Rafael López Aliaga, the pugnacious conservative mayor of Lima, Peru’s capital, is not like many politicians.
He plays up the resemblance, having deployed people in pig costumes to events and adopted a pet pig as his personal mascot.
Peruvians simply call him Porky.
In the most recent survey conducted by Ipsos, a pollster, Mr López Aliaga for the first time topped the voting-intention list for a general election scheduled for April 2026.
That put him just ahead of Keiko Fujimori, a fellow conservative who narrowly lost the last three presidential run-offs.
The mayor is a wealthy business tycoon and a former city councilman.
Like many typical Peruvian politicians, he portrays himself as a champion of the working poor.
He has a knack for hogging the spotlight.
Sometimes that requires bizarre policy proposals (self-exploding drones to stop criminals) or outlandish promises (his mayoral-campaign pitch was to make Lima a world power).
The cartoon-character capers distract attention from Mr López Aliaga’s darker impulses.
He has called for the death of two political opponents (he later said he meant their “political death”), and has suggested that an advocate for assisted dying who was suffering from a terminal illness should take her own life in a warm bath.
Mr López Aliaga, then, does not mind a fight.
Since becoming mayor in January 2023, he has waged one bitter battle after another.
His attempt to annul an unpopular toll contract ended with Lima on the hook for more than $196m in damages—and perhaps $2.7bn more in a current arbitration suit.
His plan to acquire 40-year-old diesel locomotives and carriages from California for use on a proposed rail line has been dogged by criticism.
After an acrimonious spat with the transport ministry, it remains unclear when, or even if, they will be put to use.
Such antics are costly. Lima’s debt has more than tripled under his leadership, and in June Moody’s, a rating agency, knocked its credit rating down a notch, to below investment-grade.
Blame is reserved for foes real and imagined.
Mr López Aliaga often invokes a nebulous “mafia”, most recently for leading the transport ministry to threaten huge fines on a major road-expansion project for which he had not secured an environmental permit.
Left-leaning “parasites” infest the bureaucracy, imposing their “terrorist logic” to spread suffering.
His go-to culprits—journalists, technocrats and progressives—make for easy punching bags.
Peruvians are sick of bureaucratic red tape, and scandals have tarnished leftist politicians.
Voters are fed up.
They have a right to be.
The election was called in March by President Dina Boluarte to put an end to the lawlessness that has descended on Peru.
That includes street-gang shakedowns, contract killings, illegal mining and corrupt cops being protected by their lawmaker pals.
In Mr López Aliaga, many voters see a force for order, or at least change.
So-called “Porkylovers” say his pushy ways get things done, his business acumen would help un-gum the machinery of government and his wealth would make him less likely to pinch from the public purse.
And socially conservative Peruvians like his strident views against abortion and gay marriage.
If, as expected, Mr López Aliaga throws his hat in the presidential ring for a second time, his pugilist-populist ways give him a decent shot.
Yet although he topped the August poll, he just squeaked into double-digit support.
That is a sign of Peru’s extreme electoral fragmentation, and a reminder that anything can happen.
A record-high 43 parties registered for April’s election.
No candidate is likely to gather a simple majority, so a second-round vote in June is all but guaranteed.
More capers and more controversy, to be sure.
Mr López Aliaga has said that most government ministries should be eliminated, that dangerous prisoners should be sent to El Salvador and that more troops should be put on Peru’s borders.
And that’s not all, folks.
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