Crusading Peru Lawmaker, Top Opposition Leader Aim for Presidency

Fifteen years before he became an overnight presidential hopeful, Fernando Olivera was elected Peru’s youngest congressman. His party’s emblem was a broom.

The broom still symbolizes the 42-year-old former prosecutor’s mission to clean up politics: since 1985 he has gone after larcenous politicians, murderous military officers and the like.

Hardly anyone imagined that the broom would sweep away an entire regime--much less a regime personified by Vladimiro Montesinos, the spy chief who wielded enormous power from the invisible throne of the National Intelligence Service (SIN).

Olivera and his congressional allies used an informal counterespionage network that he calls the “democratic SIN” to infiltrate the agency’s fortress-like headquarters and obtain a video, recorded by official cameras, of Montesinos apparently bribing a congressman.

The broadcast of the video forced President Alberto Fujimori to announce new elections, sent Montesinos into exile and thrust Olivera into a group of potential presidential candidates. The hopefuls--even those loyal to Fujimori--face an unfamiliar political landscape after a decade of domination by the triple alliance of Fujimori, Montesinos and the military. Peru’s stability has evaporated. The crisis has worsened the country’s economic woes. Voters are disgusted with their leaders, but eager for genuine democracy.

“I feel ready to govern the nation,” said Olivera, a restless, feisty man with steel-gray hair and an investigator’s memory for details. “We hope it is a value to have been honest, courageous and capable of dialogue. The question for all Peruvians is: To whom are we going to turn over the nation?”

Global Observers Condemn Vote

Political fortunes change fast in Peru, where individual leaders count much more than parties. Fujimori enjoyed considerable popularity and won three elections, including this year’s vote that was condemned by international observers.

His intensely personal, increasingly authoritarian rule reshaped the nation. His decision not to run next year began a volatile period that, in some ways, resembles a transition from dictatorship to democracy.

The video bombshell drove up the popularity of Olivera, founder of the Independent Moralizing Front. He has become the most admired politician in Peru, according to recent polls.

But the polls also indicate that Alejandro Toledo, a Stanford-educated economist, remains the opposition’s top presidential contender based on his strong showing against Fujimori this spring in an election marred by dirty tricks.

Other candidates are emerging in the opposition, which has been traditionally weak and divided, and in the demoralized Fujimori forces.

“The nation’s entire political class will change,” said Giovanna Penaflor, a political pollster. “For 10 years the government killed off leaders. Not literally, but people were scared to get into politics and end up being persecuted by the tax agency or having their phones tapped.”

The regime has engaged in subtle but suffocating repression, critics say.

The SIN allegedly used spying, harassment, lawsuits and negative press campaigns to beat down opponents.

The government has “managed” the opposition like chess pieces, according to Penaflor.

Some political analysts say the candidacy of Toledo, whose popularity went up 30 percentage points during the spring presidential campaign, took off partly because the government wanted to counterbalance the more-established candidates.

Among his own allies, Fujimori has changed Cabinet ministers frequently and generally discouraged the rise of ambitious successors, critics say.

Fujimori’s decision to oust Montesinos and bow out recalls his “self-coup” in 1992, when he temporarily shut down Congress and assumed autocratic powers that he never really relinquished. Now the president promises to reform the electoral institutions, justice system and intelligence services.

“He has moved from the dictatorial side to the democratic side,” said Javier Valle Riestra, who served as a prime minister for Fujimori. “This is like the second self-coup.”

Strong Fujimori Candidate Likely

Despite the current disarray of Fujimori’s political movement, it will most likely field a competitive candidate in the elections. Fujimori apparently hopes to retain influence over the candidate and survive as a power broker.

The strongest contender is Vice President Francisco Tudela, a right-wing former minister of foreign relations. Tudela was one of the 72 hostages held by terrorists in the Japanese ambassador’s residence during four months in 1997. He won admiration for his fortitude, and was wounded in the commando raid that freed the hostages.

Another possible candidate is Absalon Vasquez, a former agriculture minister. Vasquez has a national political machine and a rapport with working people. But he was tarnished by an alleged scheme to falsify a million signatures to create a new pro-Fujimori political movement.

Any candidate linked to Fujimori will struggle with the specter of corruption. The graphic videotaped scenes of Montesinos handing $15,000 to a legislator confirmed allegations that had been building for years, according to Penaflor.

The impact was especially strong among poor people, who have had the least access to independent media reports of previous scandals and the most appreciation for Fujimori’s public works and other achievements. The speed with which prosecutors shelved the criminal case against Montesinos deepened the outrage.

“People feel totally marginalized from the decisions that were taken,” Penaflor said. “There is disgust with politics in general. I see Fujimori as very weak and with few chances, unless there is real ineptitude by the opposition.”

But the opposition is not very popular either. The moment is ripe for a political outsider who does not seem overly ambitious--someone seen as honest and above the fray.

That description could fit Jorge Santistevan, the federal human rights ombudsman. Santistevan, a short and bespectacled lawyer, has made a name for himself with his dogged defense of civil rights and democracy. He has been mentioned as a potential head of a transition government if the president steps down before next year’s election. Santistevan says he would accept such a temporary post, but has not expressed interest in electoral politics.

Peru’s immediate concerns are ensuring fair elections and dismantling the intelligence apparatus that gives Montesinos lingering power, especially over the armed forces. Without major reform, any candidate could be pressured or tempted into the kind of partnership that Fujimori, a political neophyte, maintained with Montesinos and the military.

Leaders of the opposition understand that the moment calls for selfless behavior; and Toledo and Olivera both must overcome the perception that they are loose cannons.

They are acting like statesmen and working side-by-side in negotiations with the government brokered by the Organization of American States. They have toned down their initial demands for Fujimori to step down before the election, aware that this could cause further instability.

Asked in a recent television interview to comment on Olivera’s presidential ambitions, Toledo praised his possible competitor as an “incisive investigator.” He said he would not “fall into the trap” of political bickering.

But Toledo also said he hopes the opposition will unite behind a single candidate, as it did behind him during the runoff election versus Fujimori in May.

Toledo has a proven capacity to fire up crowds in Lima and provincial cities. His rise from an indigenous village strikes a powerful chord in a nation with ethnic and socioeconomic chasms.

Olivera, meanwhile, must show he can make the leap from crusader to leader, and from the Lima elite to the countryside, analysts say.

The congressman argues that he has drawn a substantial number of votes from the nation’s interior. His party demonstrated the potency of its anti-corruption platform by winning 10 legislative seats this year despite meager funding. That was before the earth-shattering videotape boosted his popularity even further.

The fall of Montesinos ended a duel that began in 1990, when Olivera dug up documents backing his allegation that Fujimori, then a presidential candidate, had evaded property taxes. The resulting criminal investigation could have derailed the candidacy.

But Montesinos reportedly resolved the case using his contacts in the court system, winning Fujimori’s trust.

Both Olivera and a book about Montesinos by a former SIN colleague claim that Montesinos retaliated by ordering a firebomb attack on Olivera’s home.

Today, Olivera is one of the opposition leaders who assert that Montesinos’ downfall resulted from increasingly despotic behavior. Montesinos even imposed Cabinet ministers on the president, Olivera alleged.

“Montesinos had lost contact with reality,” Olivera said. “He thought he owned the country. He treated human beings like his property.”

During the interview in his modest apartment, Olivera seemed a bit awed by the enormity of recent events. He looked casual and edgy in his blue Windbreaker and jeans. It was hard to imagine him as president--just as it is hard to imagine Toledo, Tudela, or anyone other than Fujimori in the job.

Nonetheless, the potential candidates are probably heartened by a vivid memory: the way an obscure Japanese-Peruvian university dean swept out of nowhere in 1990 and won the presidency of a nation in turmoil.