Bent on Reelection, Peru’s Fujimori Brushes Off Critics

The stately palace where Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori has ruled for the past decade seems tranquil, but lately the man behind its well-guarded walls has been besieged by critics.

Fujimori is under fire from political rivals, international election monitors and human rights advocates over allegations that he is using espionage and fraud in his bid for reelection April 9. Some critics accuse Fujimori of building an authoritarian regime with a democratic facade, a dictatorship in disguise that offers a worrisome model for the region’s troubled democracies.

Nonetheless, Fujimori seems as comfortable in the eye of this storm as he does in the sparsely furnished, neoclassical palace with its ornate chandeliers, echoing high-ceilinged chambers, and Asian and Peruvian artwork. In a late-night interview with The Times on Monday, the 61-year-old president was in gleeful and combative form as he fired back at detractors who fear he is on the verge of ensuring himself a record 15 years in office.

“During these 10 years, what has counted has been results, not speculations, not explanations,” Fujimori declared. He enumerated fallen foes--”two terrorist groups defeated, hyper-inflation, external debt”--and he listed his achievements--”peace with Ecuador, reform of the state, reform of the economy.”

“This is not a perfect democracy,” he said. “This is not the [United] States. But this is a country that is constructing democracy, that has had to reconstruct institutions in some cases.”

Fujimori leads half a dozen challengers in opinion polls and points out that he won reelection in 1995 by a wide margin. But critics insist that democratic institutions have been systematically weakened during his reign.

The critics allege that the powerful National Intelligence Service has become the engine of a political machine that manipulates the media as well as the military, courts, tax service and other government agencies, using them to crush dissent. The intelligence service has been singled out for harsh criticism by the U.S. Congress in the past year.

“It’s not a democracy--it is an authoritarian regime that holds unequal, unfair elections to legitimize itself,” said political analyst Santiago Pedraglio.

The president has drawn praise and generous aid from the United States and world financial institutions for Peru’s economic turnaround and victories against terrorism and cocaine trafficking. The country remains a comparative island of order in an Andean region racked by restive militaries, guerrilla conflict and economic meltdown. But some Latin America-watchers see Fujimori as a paradigm for an ominous future.

Setting the tone with a 1992 “self-coup” that temporarily shut down Peru’s Congress, Fujimori paved the way for authoritarian populists who have risen within the electoral process in nations such as Venezuela, Ecuador and Paraguay, according to a report this year by the Washington Office on Latin America, a U.S. policy institute.

“The region’s fragile transition to democracy may increasingly be at risk, not of a return to military rule but rather to a new hybrid form of civilian rule mixed with authoritarianism,” the report found. “The implications of the Fujimori approach . . . go beyond electoral processes themselves and beyond Peru.”

But there are marked differences between Fujimori and rulers such as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a verbose former coup leader. Fujimori, for instance, disdains rhetoric and ideology and has a pragmatic, austere style. He seems confident in the bond he has cultivated with Peru’s masses, especially peasants.

“They trust me,” he said, jotting occasional notes. “In the past, that population lived on the margin of the country. They were another Peru.”

The middle class in Lima, on the other hand, has led the opposition to the president ever since the Fujimori-controlled Congress removed three judges of the Constitutional Tribunal who in 1997 had tried to block a controversial law enabling his third run for office. Congress later killed a referendum drive designed to deny his reelection bid.

Another scandal now dominates the campaign: An investigation by the respected El Comercio newspaper alleged that operatives of the Fujimori campaign falsified about a million voter signatures in order to create a new political alliance for the election. In the aftermath, two campaign workers interviewed for the story fled to Costa Rica, and the Inter-American Press Assn., the Organization of American States and others expressed concern about reprisals against El Comercio.

Fujimori denies any link to a reported plan by minority shareholders to take over the newspaper or to a series of shareholder takeovers, crackdowns by the justice system or cancellations that have muzzled anti-government television programming. Citing press freedom groups that say Peru has one the hemisphere’s worst records in this area, the U.S. State Department concluded in a human rights report this year that “the government inhibits freedom of speech and of the press” through “harassment and intimidation.”

“It is a report that does not see the reality of Peru,” Fujimori responded. “This is not the ideal country for human rights. And neither is the United States.”

As for the fraud charges, he said he is convinced of the innocence of Absalon Vasquez, a key strategist accused of being the ringleader. But Fujimori acknowledged that some signatures of his movement as well as competing parties were probably falsified and said, “Let the investigation proceed.”

Fujimori also said he has responded to recommendations by the Atlanta-based Carter Center, an election monitoring group headed by former President Carter, which had warned of such serious flaws in the electoral process as use of state funds for political purposes and harassment of candidates.

The president made few concessions regarding the perennial debate over the mysterious figure who is a constant target of suspicions about his regime: intelligence advisor Vladimiro Montesinos. Montesinos, a former army captain and lawyer for drug lords, is widely seen as Peru’s chief spy. His penchant for secrecy and revelations that he earns more than $2 million a year, partly in outside income, have fed allegations of his involvement in corruption, death squad activities and dirty tricks by the intelligence service, which critics say functions as the political police.

Fujimori seems amused by the furor over one of the few advisors who has remained at his side throughout his decade of rule.

“He has become a myth, no?” the president said with a chuckle. Although he called Montesinos a “super-efficient advisor” in matters related to terrorism and drugs, Fujimori scoffed at assertions that Montesinos wields as much power as the president.

“The one who makes the decisions is Alberto Fujimori,” the president said. “And the No. 2 is Alberto Fujimori.”

In keeping with his anti-politician image, Fujimori has yet to aggressively hit the campaign trail, even with the April 9 election less than a month away and one of his opponents, economist Alejandro Toledo, beginning to surge in polls. Political analysts say some of the president’s advisors seem worried that the race for a first-round victory will prove tighter than expected.

“Some of the people around him seem to be scrambling,” a U.S. official said. “But he’s keeping a comfortable distance from the process.”

When asked about his visions of a third term, the president talked about improving economic growth and generating employment and well-being for millions of impoverished Peruvians. But when asked about potential outcomes on election night, he cracked a prudent grin that was incongruent with his image as the all-knowing, all-powerful ruler.

“We cannot make predictions,” he said. “We have to wait to see what the people say.”