Peru Runoff: Fujimori and Humala in a Tight Race to the Finish

Peru’s second-round vote is slated for Sunday, but who the winner will be is far from clear. The two candidates—conservative Keiko Fujimori and left-leaning Ollanta Humala—are running neck and neck, while polls show many voters remain undecided. Reuters Factbox summarizes a large portion of the last major polls from last week (Pollsters cannot publish surveys in Peru during the last week before the election). All list Fujimori leading, but, in some cases, her lead is less than 1 percent. An Imasen poll published May 29 shows Humala ahead by 1.3 percent. An Ipsos Apoyo survey measuring voter intention and published by El Comercio on May 29 shows Fujimori ahead by 2 percent. But the incidence of blank votes hit 12 percent while undecided votes hit 8 percent. 

Access an AS/COA Online election guide to the Peruvian second-round vote, including links to coverage, candidate plans, and Sunday’s presidential debate. 

IMF Candidates Seek Support from Brazil

Christine Lagarde arrived in Brazil Sunday to field support for her candidacy for the IMF director position left vacant after Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned over a sexual assault scandal. Mexican Central Bank Director Agustín Carstens followed Lagarde to Brazil on Wednesday, where he pitched his candidacy to Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega. Brazil has yet to throw its support behind either candidate.

Read an AS/COA Online analysis about Latin America and the call for a non-European IMF director. 

Where Do Brazilian Taxes Go?

Though the average Brazilian must spend six months working just to pay taxes, says A Folha de São Paulo, few know where their money goes due to poor transparency laws. Greg Michener blogs in The Christian Science Monitor about a long-delayed proposal to make Brazilian taxation more transparent. 

Brazil’s Enviro Agency Grants Dam-construction Licenses

The Brazilian environmental agency (known as Ibama) kicked off June by giving the green light to and issuing licenses for construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam. The project, which has drawn criticism and legal action from environmentalists, will be built on a tributary of the Amazon River. 

Read an AS/COA Online analysis of the legislative debate on reform of Brazil’s Forest Code.

From the Americas Society/Council of the Americas. AS/COA Online's news brief examines the major—as well as some of the overlooked—events and stories occurring across the Americas. Check back every Wednesday for the weekly roundup.

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Fernández Pushes for New Central Bank Head

Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has sought to replace Central Bank Governor Martín Redrado after he turned down a presidential order to use $6.6 billion in reserves to pay off debt. Former Central Bank head Mario Blejer was named as a potential replacement. However, Redrado rejected the notion that he will resign and said that, according to the Bank’s charter, the decision to dismiss him lies with the Argentine Congress.

Buenos Aires Mayor Announces Presidential Bid

Mayor of Buenos Aires Mauricio Macri announced intentions of a 2011 presidential bid this week. A member of the conservative Propuesta Republicana (PRO) party, Macri hopes to face Néstor Kirchner in a second round and insists the former president “could never win” a one-on-one election.

Looking Back on Washington’s 2009 LatAm Policy

Writing for the State Department’s Dipnote blog, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Arturo Valenzuela reflects on U.S. engagement in the Americas during the first year of the Obama administration. After recounting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Mexico in March and the launch of the Inter-American Social Protection Network, Valenzuela concludes “2009 has been an exciting year in terms of our relationships—both bilaterally and multilaterally.”

Already facing the rest of his life in prison, former President of Peru Alberto Fujimori, 71, received an additional six years on Wednesday for charges of corruption.  At Fujimori’s fourth and final trial in two years, the Lima court also fined him $9 million for authorizing wiretapping and bribes during his 10-year rule that ended in 2000.

Fujimori had plead guilty to the corruption charges on Monday, cutting short a trial at which 60 Peruvians were prepared to testify against him.  By pleading guilty, critics believe Fujimori sought to avoid further embarrassing his daughter Keiko Fujimori, considered a frontrunner in the country’s 2011 presidential race.

Fujimori also avoided probing into an era in which the government is thought to have set up a vast spy network to combat the Shining Path terrorist organization, and then used the network for political gain.

Last April, Fujimori received a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses including murders at Barrio Alto and La Cantuta University.  Under Peruvian law, multiple sentences are not accumulative, rather guilty parties serve the longest they have received.  Peru’s Supreme Court is currently reviewing Fujimori’s appeal over the 25-year sentence, though observers say the verdict is not likely to be commuted.

From the Americas Society/Council of the Americas. AS/COA Online's news brief examines the major—as well as some of the overlooked—events and stories occurring across the Americas. Check back every Wednesday for the weekly roundup.

Thirty-Four Leaders to Gather for Fifth Summit

Trinidad and Tobago hosts leaders for the Fifth Summit of the Americas this weekend. The conference will serve as President Barack Obama’s introduction to a majority of the leaders in the Western Hemisphere. Although Washington’s Cuba policy has been in the spotlight ahead of the meeting, it’s far from the only big issue facing leaders. The National Journal reports that “Obama will have to walk the line between Latin America's heightened expectations and domestic political considerations.” But an editorial in La Opinión takes a sunnier view, saying that what’s most important is the “tone set in the relations between the U.S. and the rest of the hemisphere.”

Alberto Fujimori kept his head down, studiously taking notes, as a panel of three Peruvian judges found him guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to 25 years in prison on Tuesday.

It took three hours to read out the verdict and sentence Peru’s former president for offences the court deemed “crimes against humanity.”

There was no doubt, the court found, that Mr Fujimori had authorized and sanctioned the Colina death squad responsible for the Cantuta and Barrios Altos massacres and the kidnappings of businessman Samuel Daly and journalist Gustavo Gorriti.

Mr Fujimori paused in his notetaking as the names of the victims were read out—25 dead, and four survivors, including an eight-year-old boy gunned down during a polleria (chicken barbeque) in Barrios Altos in 1991 and nine students and a professor at La Cantuta university in 1992.

Inside the high-security special forces compound where the 16-month trial had been held, the international press, families of the victims, Fujimoristas, legal observers, and riot police watched in a kind of awe as the sentence came down.

Here was the man who, together with his close adviser Vladimir Montesinos, had dominated public life in the perilous, chaotic 1990s. Fujimori’s only words, after briefly consulting with his lawyer, were to signal his intent to appeal.

Only days before Fujimori, in a vigorous two-hour oration, had finished the trial much as he began it 16 months ago, denying any direct link to the Colina group and proclaiming himself the savior of the Peruvian people. He had ruled “in hell” he said, and he had crushed the bloody Maoist Shining Path insurgency and introduced the economic reforms that paved the way for the tremendous growth of recent years.

This has been a powerful argument in Peru, where those who lived through the years of rampant inflation and the slaughter of innocents in the sierra, the jungle and later in Lima, do not lightly discount the value of peace.

Fujimori’s daughter Keiko, who has lead recent polls of possible contenders for the 2011 presidential campaign, has no doubt benefited from this sentiment. She says her support is strongest is among Peru’s poor, where Fujimori was one of the few presidents to visit and build infrastructure such as schools.

Yesterday she announced she would embark on a national crusade to clear her father’s name, focusing on the poor highlands where already there is a profusion of orange and white “Fujimori innocente, Keiko Fuerza” signs. "We want to go to the most remote villages, above all those that suffered the scourge of terrorism and let it be known how unjust this verdict is," she told reporters.

The depth of Fujimori’s support is difficult to gauge, however, especially from Lima. I routinely ask everyone I meet for their view and I am often surprised by the answers—a Catholic nun who watched the verdict being read out was so delighted she felt her hair stand on end; a business leader declared him “the best president Peru ever had;” many people sit on the fence—he brought Abimael Guzmán to heel and rescued the economy, it was war … It is at this point that the question is raised: what is allowable in times of war?

Peru’s court drew the line at a state-sanctioned death squad operating with impunity; something that international observers have applauded. And recent polls by Lima's Catholic University have shown that 64 percent of people believed Fujimori guilty of human rights abuses, and saw the trial as a chance for Peru to move forward.

I spoke with Gustavo Gorriti, the investigative journalist who was kidnapped as Mr. Fujimori and Montesinos staged their “self-coup,” and who has followed the careers of both men with a doggedness that has attracted many death threats over the years.

Gorritti, who went on to advise Alejandro Toledo’s administration in the period leading up to Mr Fujimori’s flight from the country in 2000, says Peruvians should have no illusions that a Keiko presidency would be Alberto Fujimori all over again.

A Keiko campaign for 2011 will be a test of the strength of her support, but it will also be a test of Peru’s still far from perfect institutions and Peruvians themselves.

*Naomi Mapstone is a contributing blogger to americasquarterly.org. She is the Financial Times Andean correspondent and is based in Lima, Peru.