Waging Peace: Peru

Monitoring Elections

Peru President Alberto Fujimori was first elected in 1990, amended the constitution so he could run for a second term, and was widely criticized during those two five-year terms for undemocratic practices. During a 1992 coup against him, he shut down the Congress and Supreme Court, replacing them with a legislature and judiciary that leaned in his favor. His intelligence service intimidated his critics into silence, and independent media outlets were shut down. When he decided to run for a third term and three judges said such a move would be unconstitutional, he dismissed them. The Carter Center and others in the international community became increasing concerned as they saw these developments unfold.

2000 Elections
Given these events, The Carter Center and its partner, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), were welcomed by Peruvian civil society groups and the electoral authorities as international observers. Prior to the April 9, 2000, election day, The Carter Center and the NDI publicly identified numerous issues that led them to conclude irreparable damage was done to the electoral process and that it fell far below international standards. Election day was in jeopardy, and the Center and NDI asked President Alberto Fujimori to postpone the April 9 presidential and legislative elections, but he declined.

The Center and NDI sent a small mission to observe voting on April 9. The mission saw many of the same flaws other observers did: pre-marked ballots in favor of Fujimori; ballots missing the listing of opponent Alejandro Toledo; attempted intimidation by police and the military; inexplicable delays in the vote-computing process; and in a significant number of polling stations, more ballots cast than the number of voters assigned to the poll site.

2000 Runoff Elections
Peruvian election officials called for a runoff on May 28, 2000, since neither presidential candidate received 50 percent of the vote. Since fundamental flaws were not rectified and Toledo withdrew from the runoff, the Center and NDI declined to observe the runoff.

After the fraudulent May runoff, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Barbados Prime Minister Erskine Sandiford, and former Costa Rica President Rodrigo Carazo, who led one of the Center's assessment missions to Peru, called on the Organization of American States (OAS) to send a special mission to Peru to develop remedies to the legitimacy crisis, which the OAS did. The Center and NDI returned to Peru in July 2000 to meet with Peruvian political and civic groups, though Fujimori's government declined offers to meet with the delegation. At the conclusion of their mission, the team called for shortening of President Fujimori's term and for new elections. In September 2000, Fujimori agreed to shorten his term, called for new elections in 2001, and announced he would not be a candidate. He later fled the country in December amid a corruption scandal and resigned the presidency from exile in Japan.

2001 Presidential Election
During the subsequent April 2001 presidential election, The Carter Center and NDI returned, noting widespread delay of poll openings, and in a few instances, polls did not open at all. The delegation urged improved training for poll workers and voters but, overall, found that Peru had made remarkable progress since the fraudulent election of May 2000. Toledo, who entered the race again, and his opponent, former President Alan Garcia, headed to a runoff in early June.

The Center and NDI sent a delegation to observe the runoff election, in which Toledo emerged as the people's choice.

At the end of his first year in office, President Toledo convened a national dialogue of all political parties and civil society representatives to set a framework for governance. He asked The Carter Center to help assure the dialogue's success by providing international advisers. On behalf of the Center and its Council of Presidents and Prime Ministers of the Americas, former Costa Rica President Rodrigo Carazo advised the national dialogue and visited Peru on three occasions to participate in the process that resulted in a consensus document.