Fujimori Narrowly Ahead in Peru Vote

Embattled President Alberto Fujimori held a narrow lead over challenger Alejandro Toledo in Peru’s presidential vote Sunday, according to projections by pollsters on an election day marked by tension and allegations of irregularities and potential fraud.

Fujimori had 47.3% of the vote and Toledo had 42.6%, with the rest split among seven other candidates, according to a survey of a representative sample of ballots by the Apoyo polling firm. Another projection, by the CPI firm, showed Fujimori leading 48.2% to 40.9%. The numbers suggested that Toledo, a Stanford-educated economist from an impoverished indigenous family, would deny the president 50% of the vote and force a runoff election.

That would be a resounding blow to Fujimori, who has dominated Peruvian politics during the past decade. But the first official results were not expected until late Sunday night.

“There is a reason to celebrate tonight: the dawning of a new democracy in Peru,” Toledo told a roaring crowd a few blocks from the presidential palace. “Tomorrow will be a new dawn for this Peru of ours.”

But later, Toledo expressed suspicion because earlier exit polls had showed him in the lead. The election is a crucial test of Peru’s democratic system, with likely repercussions for troubled democracies throughout the Andean region. Peruvian and foreign election observers said the campaign was marred by biased media coverage, harassment of opposition candidates and such dirty tricks as the alleged forgery of about a million voter registration signatures.

Election monitors did not report systematic or widespread fraud Sunday. The chief of an election monitoring mission sent by the Organization of American States, Eduardo Stein, described his overall impression of the process as “basically positive.”

But the first accusations of misconduct surfaced by midmorning when Transparencia, an electoral watchdog organization, announced two cases of Fujimori operatives found with boxes of pre-marked ballots.

“There have been many irregularities,” said Percy Medina of Transparencia. The number of problems with the election was unprecedented, according to officials with the group.

Fujimori, meanwhile, dismissed any notion of potential fraud.

“There is a whole system of control in place so that this does not occur,” the president told reporters Sunday morning. “The possibility of fraud does not exist.”

Fujimori did not appear in public to comment after the exit polls that showed him headed for a likely second-round showdown with Toledo. A runoff would take place within about six weeks and probably reverse the roles of the candidates, with the president on the defensive and Toledo riding the momentum of his surge past more established candidates, six of whom have already promised to support him.

Other troublesome aspects of the election, detected by OAS observers, included potentially troublesome glitches in the government’s computerized vote-counting system, Stein said. During a test of the computer Saturday, the results of some sample ballots disappeared, he said.

“If this is not controlled, it could produce problems,” said Stein, who also criticized lack of access by election observers to the actual vote count and the “disproportionate” presence of soldiers and police at polling places. In Lima, the capital, and Arequipa, soldiers intimidated Peruvian and foreign poll-watchers by demanding their names and writing them down, he said.

Although Sunday’s combination of exit polls and vote sampling provided a strong indicator of the outcome, a definitive result is not expected until today. If the race remains close, the deciding votes could come from remote villages in the Andes and the Amazon region, traditional Fujimori bastions where Toledo’s appeal as a cholo, or Peruvian of indigenous descent, will be tested. Traditionally, the vote count lags in isolated areas.

Consolidation of Power Part of Trend

If Fujimori wins an unprecedented third five-year term, he will become the longest-serving elected leader in recent Latin American history--other than dictators who periodically held sham elections.

His consolidation of power has been part of an authoritarian trend in the region, eroding a Latin American tradition that attempted to prevent one-man rule by prohibiting the reelection of presidents. Venezuela and Brazil have both passed laws in recent years permitting presidential reelection.

Whatever the result, the election is likely to further divide Peruvians into two camps: those who see Fujimori as a manipulative despot who has undermined democratic institutions and those who see him as a decisive leader who has restored economic and political stability.

Disenchantment with Fujimori derives largely from his failure to moderate a strongman style that has relied on populism and an alliance with the national intelligence service and the armed forces. While his two-fisted offensives against terrorism and economic crisis made him popular during his first term, many Peruvians say he grew autocratic and aloof after winning reelection in 1995 and ramming through legislative measures allowing his third candidacy.

In contrast, Toledo calls himself a healer of political wounds. He struck a chord with Peru’s long-abandoned indigenous and mixed-race majority by recounting the inspirational story of his rise from the hardscrabble Andean highlands to Stanford, Harvard and the World Bank, where he worked as an economist.

Toledo has never held elected office. Despite Fujimori’s superior resources, however, Toledo’s performance Sunday anointed him the leader of an anti-Fujimori movement that is gathering steam rapidly.

“It is a message that the Peruvian people want less caudillos [political bosses] and more institutions,” said Mirko Lauer, a political columnist.

Difficult Economic Conditions Help Rival

The difficult economic conditions of middle- and working-class Peruvians also aided Toledo. Interviewed on his way to vote, schoolteacher Jose Ramirez, 35, complained that he has to work part time as a driver in Lima’s enormous fleet of taxis in order to support his wife and three children. He said he supported Toledo--but not without reservations.

“Ten years have passed, and we are the in the same situation,” Ramirez said. “At least those of us in the middle class are doing badly. Maybe Toledo has a better proposal, even if he doesn’t have a clear proposal. And he could be lying. Voting today is a real gamble.”

Despite considerable cynicism about politics here, the election brought out an impressive grass-roots army of nonpartisan election observers. Transparencia fielded about 25,000 blue-vested volunteers who fanned out across the sprawling nation nearly twice the size of Texas and with a population of 27 million people.

Watchdogs were particularly concerned about far-off rural villages that spent years under martial law when terrorists threatened national security.

Voters in such areas tend to be uneducated and wary of the security forces and therefore vulnerable to attempts at coercion and fraud.

A case in point: the village of Llamellin in a valley near Toledo’s native province of Ancash. The hamlet of 8,000 residents, once a stronghold of the Sendero Luminoso terrorist group, relies on a generator for two hours of electricity a day. A grueling eight-hour drive over a dirt road afflicted by rains and landslides is required to reach it.

“It’s an odyssey to get out there,” said Martin Gomez, the Transparencia volunteer assigned to monitor the election process in the area. Gomez said in a telephone interview that he had not yet been able to communicate with Llamellin on Sunday to find out whether the election had proceeded there without mishap.