Editing Mario Vargas Llosa (section)

=== Presidential candidacy ===
{{Main|1990 Peruvian general election}}
In 1987, he helped form and soon became a leader of the centre-right party [[Liberty Movement|Movimiento Libertad]].<ref name="Bolland8">{{Harvnb|Boland|Harvey|1988|p=8}}</ref> The following year his party entered a coalition with the parties of Peru's two principal conservative politicians at the time, ex-president [[Fernando Belaúnde Terry]] (of the [[Popular Action (Peru)|Popular Action]] party) and [[Luis Bedoya Reyes]] (of the [[Partido Popular Cristiano (Peru)|Popular Christian Party]]), to form the tripartite centre-right coalition known as ''[[Democratic Front (Peru)|Frente Democrático]]'' (FREDEMO).<ref name="Bolland8" /> He ran for the [[List of Presidents of Peru|presidency of Peru]] in 1990 as the candidate of the FREDEMO coalition with the support of the United States.<ref name=":112">{{Cite journal |last=Mitchell |first=Timothy |date=2005 |title=The work of economics: how a discipline makes its world |journal=European Journal of Sociology |volume=46 |issue=2 |pages=299–310 |doi=10.1017/S000397560500010X |doi-access=free |s2cid=146456853}}</ref> Many of Peru's political elite in the 21st century began their careers in FREDEMO.<ref name=":5">{{Cite news |title=Mario Vargas Llosa: Why the 2010 Nobel Prize winner stirs controversy in Peru |work=[[Christian Science Monitor]] |url=https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2010/1007/Mario-Vargas-Llosa-Why-the-2010-Nobel-Prize-winner-stirs-controversy-in-Peru |access-date=31 July 2023 |issn=0882-7729}}</ref> He proposed [[neoliberal]] policies—similar to those later adopted by Alberto Fujimori—that included a drastic economic [[austerity]] program that frightened most of the country's poor; this program emphasized the need for privatization, a market economy, free trade, and most importantly, the dissemination of private property.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Iber|first=Patrick|date=15 April 2019|title=The Political Lives of Mario Vargas Llosa|language=en-US|work=[[The Nation]]|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/mario-vargas-llosa-sabres-and-utopias-book-review/|access-date=19 April 2021|issn=0027-8378}}</ref><ref name="emilyparker">{{Harvnb|Parker|2007}}</ref>

Vargas Llosa, according to Rospigliosi, inspired some of the objectives drafted by the [[Peruvian Armed Forces]] in the [[Plan Verde]], specifically in the volume titled ''Driving Peru into the XXI century'', which outlined Peru becoming a neoliberal country and called for the extermination of vulnerable populations deemed as economically burdensome.<ref name=":16">{{Cite book |last=Rospigliosi |first=Fernando |title=Las Fuerzas Armadas y el 5 de abril: la percepción de la amenaza subversiva como una motivación golpista |publisher=Instituto de Estudios Peruanos |year=1996 |location=Lima, Peru |pages=28–40}}</ref> Members of the [[Peruvian Armed Forces]] who drafted the Plan Verde initially expected Vargas Llosa to win the presidency and support their objectives.<ref name=":10">{{Cite journal |last=Avilés |first=William |date=Spring 2009 |title=Despite Insurgency: Reducing Military Prerogatives in Colombia and Peru |journal=[[Latin American Politics and Society]] |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |volume=51 |issue=1 |pages=57–85 |doi=10.1111/j.1548-2456.2009.00040.x |s2cid=154153310}}</ref><ref name=":16"/> Although Vargas Llosa won the first round with 34% of the vote, he was defeated by a then-unknown agricultural engineer, [[Alberto Fujimori]], in the subsequent run-off.<ref name="emilyparker" /> Vargas Llosa included an account of his run for the presidency in the memoir ''[[A Fish in the Water]]'' (''El pez en el agua'', 1993).<ref>{{Harvnb|Larsen|2000|p=155}}</ref>