(7 of 10)
A year later, the military called new elections. This time Belaúnde won-with the help of the Christian Democrats, three small leftist parties, and moderates who saw him as the only saving compromise between APRA and the army. It was still close. Belaunde got 39% of the votes, just enough to satisfy the constitutional provision requiring at least one third of the total vote for election.
Belaunde inherited a country that for all its troubles, was beginning to show some economic strength. Under the sound, hard-money policies of Prado's Premier Pedro Beltran, policies that the military junta had the sense to continue, Peru's foreign reserves had climbed from almost nothing in 1959 to $106 million by 1963, old industries like iron and copper mining were expanding, new industries like fish meal were growing, and the sol had become one of Latin America's stronger currencies. Then here came Belaunde, inexperienced in government, unschooled in banking or economics. He came with a platform that seemed to promise all things to all men, a rare gift of phrase, and a tendency toward impulse.
Changing the Face. The office has seemed to transform the man. He is calmer, more tolerant, less inclined to mike-shattering speeches. He has surrounded himself with young, energetic talent: a 29-year-old Agriculture Minister, a 34-year-old Director of Roads, a 34-year-old Director of Planning. The army seems satisfied, and Belaunde has proved a deft politician in dealing with the opposition that controls 110 of the 185 congressional seats. "Our position," says an APRA leader, "is one of critical cooperation."
By whatever name, it works. In the past 19 months, some 500 bills have skimmed through Congress to help Belaúnde change the ancient face of Peru. He has extended universal free education from kindergarten through university, liberalized social security and retirement programs, set up a National Housing Board that hopes to finance 100,000 new homes by 1970. Five months after taking office, Belaúnde held municipal elections in 1,400 cities, towns and villages throughout Peru. They were the first such elections in 45 years; other governments had merely appointed the mayors and civic officials.
Rivers of the Montaña. One of Belaúnde's major preoccupations is agriculture. He has pushed through the country's first major agrarian reform bill, and it is one of the most sensible in Latin America. Belaúnde knows the les sons of Mexico's disastrous ejido system, does not intend to splinter the big. highly productive cotton and sugar estates into thousands of tiny plots, each barely able to support its owner. Instead he will break up only those that do not carry their weight, and satisfy the peasants' land hunger by opening vast new areas that have never seen a plow. "Right now," he says, "we have only one-half an acre of land under cultivation, per capita. We must double that to one acre."