A Fresh Start for Peru

Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori recently declared that new presidential elections would be held in his country, and that he would not be a candidate. This announcement comes only seven weeks into Fujimori's landmark third term as president, after he was elected in May and inaugurated this July. Although he did not say how soon the new elections would be held, Fujimori's decision to step down came when a videotape surfaced showing the Chief of Peru's Secret Service bribing a Peruvian lawmaker in attempts to get him to ally with Fujimori's political party.

Corruption is nothing new in Fujimori's ten-year-old administration. In 1997, he fired three of the seven members of Peru's Constitutional Tribunal, allowing himself to run for a third five-year term--even though the Peruvian Constitution explicitly limits a president to two terms. After his May victory, Fujimori was internationally criticized for his use of a fraudulent signature campaign as well as smear and harassment tactics against his opponent.

While Fujimori's free-market reforms have made Peru one of the more prosperous Latin American nations, the infringements against his people's civil rights through his efforts to control the country's election processes, media, legislative and judicial systems have made a mockery of Peru's so-called democratic government. Indeed, after he announced his resignation, protestors outside the Presidential Palace chanted "the dictatorship is over!"

There is no doubt that Fujimori's pending resignation will bode well for Peru. The Secret Service, the body responsible for carrying out many of the President's civil-rights violations, will be dismantled, creating a safer environment for bipartisan politics and a free press. Because of its economic stability, the nation will most likely be able to build a stable democratic government relatively quickly. In one of the most underdeveloped and bureaucratically corrupt regions of the world, Peru will be able to serve as a model for other Latin American nations to emulate in the development of their governmental and economic systems. The time has come for Peru to look toward a brighter future as a nation endowed not only with wealth, but also with freedom and a responsibility to its neighbors.