Peru’s Democratic Hope Survives

Amid a shadow of apparent fraud, Peru’s hotly contested presidential election swung back and forth Wednesday and finally turned what appeared to be a cakewalk for President Alberto Fujimori into a runoff with a determined opponent. The second round of voting should be closely supervised by independent monitoring agencies to avoid the taint evident in the first round.

Running against Fujimori’s formidable electoral machine, intimidation and a biased media, opposition candidate Alejandro Toledo gave the president what seemed impossible just a few weeks ago--a run for his money. Toledo rose from extreme poverty as the son of a bricklayer to become a respected economist with a doctoral degree from Stanford.

Winning his way into a runoff wasn’t easy. As the election progressed, so did the fraud allegations against Fujimori loyalists. There were missing ballot sheets in a number of booths. Toledo supporters found no ballot boxes in others. Unexplained delays in the delivery of ballots and tally sheets to computer centers complicated the count. The election had all the fingerprints of malfeasance.

Most troubling was the sudden turnaround. Throughout the day, exit polls had Toledo ahead of Fujimori. But when the official count began, the trend was reversed. At first Fujimori was on top, then his fortunes fell once again.

If the runoff isn’t corrupt, Peru may be on track to follow its neighbors Argentina, Chile and Uruguay in a South American trend toward full democracy. The alternative is to slip further into the Cuban model, under which a leader remains in power as long as the army and security forces can maintain him there.

When the nation’s voters choose their president in about six weeks, the eyes of democratic countries will be on Peru.