Peruvian economic growth and greater political stability…

Peruvian economic growth and greater political stability by the 1870s has created the conditions for the organization of the country's first political party.

It is composed primarily of the plutocrats of the guano era, the newly rich merchants, planters, and businesspeople, who believe that the country can no longer afford to be governed by the habitual military "man on horseback."

Rather, the new age of international trade, business, and finance needs the managerial skills that only civilian leadership can provide.

Their candidate is the dynamic and cosmopolitan Pardo, who, at age thirty-seven, has already made a fortune in business and served with distinction as treasury minister and mayor of Lima.

Who better, they ask, at a time when the government of Colonel José Balta (1868-72) has sunk into a morass of corruption and incompetence, to clean up the government, deal with the mounting financial problems, and further develop the liberal export-model that so benefit their particular interests?