Alberto Andrade
Carmona´s life seems to be predestined directly to success. But be careful nothing has
been easy for him. He is not a man of inherited fortune, therefore, he has never counted
on those influences so common in a country of relations and contacts. He was born in a
middle class family. He makes complicated things easy. He has a natural talent to
persuade, a friendly and warm personality and support among the rich and the poor.
Something hardly found nowadays in Peru, country of extreme contrasts.
He was born on December 24th 1943 in Los Barrios Altos, in an ancient house
that belonged to his grandmother, Mrs. María Antonieta de Carmona. Alberto´s father had
the same name ,Mr. Alberto Andrade Blanco, who made a career in the Army in administrative
work. Thanks to his father’s job , the present Mayor of Lima and candidate to the
Presidency of the Republic visited the country from one extreme to the other. As a result
of this, he studied elementary school in Tumbes, Lima and Cusco.From one place to the other
He wrote his first letters at Santa Rosa school, in The Imperial Capital, where he spent
his first years but without knowing Macchu Picchu. This was a dream that he could come
true just when he was a teenager. The family moved from Cusco to Lima and the little
Alberto was registered at San Andres and later at La Recoleta school. It was all part of
being son of a military man in Peru. After being in Lima for a year and a half, the
Army sent his father to Tumbes and the little Alberto ended up in a public school. In
Tumbes the images of the boarder soldiers where familiar to him. They were always
splashing around the warm waters of the mangrove swamps. And what about the charming
beaches where the little Alberto learned to swim under his parent’s attentive look. A
couple of years later, the family was back to Lima and Alberto was registered again at La
Recoleta school. It was there where he finished his elementary school. In order to begin
high school he was registered at Guadalupe, a school for which Andrade had a special
affection, although he had to change school again. This time it was a family decision, so
he is taken to Antonio Raimondi school where he finished his studies.
Wedding and Work
He applied to San Marcos University when he was 18 years old and he got in with very good
grades. He aimed to Law and he combined the knowledge of law with his work. Who will say
it, he got a job at Lima Town Council without thinking that as years went by , politics
would lead him to be Mayor of the city. By that time he met Anita Botteri Herrera, who
studied education at the university on the other side of the road, that is ,La Católica.
They had a year of engagement and when he was 19 years old he got married at the Chapel of
Hospital Militar, because Anita was also daughter of an Army officer. It was on May 30th
1963.>
Law and business
Andrade graduated as a lawyer when he was 25 years old, after having worked as an
insurance salesman, activity in which he had successful achievements. A few years later
and with his job savings, the lawyer set up Alda enterprise which is devoted to make
leather goods: fine women handbags, functional men wallets and belts for both sexes. They
began to back up his business success. This activity kept him busy for a long period of
his life.
Politics
It was just in 1993 when Andrade decided to begin in politics actively and he did it in
Partido Popular Cristiano (PPC), an organization that fitted him perfectly. By that time,
it was said that PPC was the party of the businessmen because that social minority
identified fully with its leader Mr. Luis Bedoya Reyes. By then, in Peru, politics had a
special scenery for the parties of great social roots and long history. So
supporting PPC did not seem to assign anybody any important position. By the middle of the
60s, Bedoya was Mayor of the city but at that time he belonged to the political party
Democracia Cristiana, headed by Héctor Cornejo Chávez. Andrade was elected alderman for
the district of Miraflores and being there, he worked in the area of neighborhood
participation and he began his apprenticeship in the art of ruling cities.
The
great achievement
He won the elections in 1986 and since then he would only be sitting on Town Council
benches, he was elected three times Mayor of the most important district of the capital.
Famous for its tree-lined roads and avenues, parks, successful businesses, well attended
cinemas, elegant cafes, shops and an educated and well-informed neighborhood. But all that
was part of Miraflores history.
The fact is that due to sporadic crisis and terrorism , the district was about to
collapse. So Andrade and his team began by resettling thousands of street vendors, a
miracle that nobody expected to be fulfilled. As time went by ,resettlements would be
a typical task of this Mayor. In order to achieve his aim, he made a good business
formula for everybody, through a patient and persuasive work. The result at
everyone’s first sight was that the streets were suddenly empty and everybody was
glad because the city began to change
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