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The
Elections of 2000 and 2001
The run-up to the elections of 9 April
2000 was marked by Fujimori's controversial decision to stand for a
third
term of office, despite the Peruvian Constitution only allowing for
two continuous terms. His rationale was that since the Constitution was
introduced during his second term, he was entitled to stand for one
more. However, even with his firm control of the media (especially TV),
the election campaign
saw
strong opposition emerging in the person of Alejandro Toledo
Manrique (a “serrano” of humble social origin) - “Perú Posible”
candidate, representing in particular the interests of Andean cities and
communities. Such was Toledo's popularity that a smear campaign surfaced
a few weeks before the voting, accusing him of shunning an illegitimate
daughter and organising a disastrous financial pyramid scheme in the
early 1990s.
In the event, the results, which were unusually slow to come out, were
announced amid accusations of ballot-rigging by Fujimori's supporters,
leading the US to express official concern about the electoral process
and to call for a second round of elections. Even though the true
figures may never be known, Fujimori technically faced a second round of
voting in any case, having failed to gain the fifty percent of the vote
necessary to avoid such a run-off - though it had been close, with
Fujimori with approximately forty-eight percent against Toledo with
around forty percent. However, Toledo boycotted the race because of
concerns about election fraud, and Fujimori was re-elected. In the
legislative elections Fujimori’s coalition, “Perú 2000”, won the
most congressional seats but fell short of a majority.
Fujimori’s
presidency began to unravel in September 2000 after his intelligence
chief,
Vladimiro
Montesinos, was linked to a corruption scandal. After firing
Montesinos, Fujimori called an early presidential election for April
2001 and promised not to run in it. By mid-November Fujimori faced a
groundswell of political opposition as new charges of corruption and
fraud continued to surface. While Fujimori was abroad for a trade summit
of Pacific Rim nations, opposition parties took control of Congress and
elected a centrist legislator, Valentin Paniagua, as the leader of
Congress. Fujimori announced from Japan that he would resign as
president, and Paniagua was chosen to lead an interim government with
former UN Secretary General Javier Pérez de Cuellar as Prime Minister,
pending new presidential and legislative elections. In a public rebuke
of Fujimori, the legislature rejected the former president’s
resignation and voted to remove him from office for being morally unfit.
Alejandro Toledo (53.1%) was elected
president on 03 June 2001 after a runoff with former president Alan
Garcia Perez (46.9%). Toledo vowed to reform Peru’s criminal justice
system, promote foreign investment, and reduce unemployment. In
legislative elections, held alongside the presidential election,
Toledo’s Possible Peru Party emerged as the largest party in the
congress, although it did not attain a majority. The American Popular
Revolutionary Alliance (APRA), led by Garcia, became the second largest
party.
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