Peru Election 2006

Aberto Fujimori was defeated in his attempt to win a seat on July 29 upper house election for the People’s New Democratic Party (PNP). According to Petroleum News, Fujimori was fourth on the PNP list with 51,430 votes.
Kyodo News Special Coverage of 2007 House of Councillors Election here

Preliminary results (July 30 update by Kyodo News):
Democratic Party of Japan 60 seats
Liberal Democratic Party 37 seats
Komeito 9 seats
Japanase Communist Party 3 seats
Social Democratic Party 2 seats
People’s New Party 2 seats
New Party Nippon 1 seat
Independents 7 seats
Ex-Peruvian President Fujimori fails to win Diet seat in Japan
TOKYO, July 30 (07:21)
KYODO News
Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, who filed his candidacy for Sunday’s upper house election in Japan while under house arrest in Chile, has conceded defeat in the election. ”I could not conduct election campaigning and it turned out to be a regrettable result,” he said Sunday at his home in a Santiago suburb where he is placed under house arrest. Japanese reporters started gathering just before polling stations closed in Japan for the House of Councillors election.
Despite Senate Loss, Fujimori Plans to Work for Peru’s Welfare
Living in Peru
July 30, 2007 (10:00)
(LIP-ir) — Peru’s former President, Alberto Fujimori did not succeed his attempt to become a part of Japan’s Senate. When reporting election results, Kyodo agency, stated that Fujimori received 51,612 votes in his run for Senate representing the People’s New Party (PNP).
According to estimates, Fujimori would have needed at least 1 million votes to win a seat in Japan’s Upper House.
As opposed to the candidates in the Democratic Party, which received 18,829,333 votes, Fujimori’s People’s New Party, a small extreme left-wing party, received a total of 679,054 votes. Due to the number of votes it received, the PNP did manage to maintain it’s place in Congress.
After his defeat, Peru’s former President stated that once the extradition process in Chile was resolved, he looked forward to rebuilding his political career “to return and work for the welfare of all Peruvians.”
Fujimori, who was President of Peru from 1990-2000, is currently under house arrest in Chile awaiting Chilean Supreme Court ruling on his extradition to Peru. The Peruvian government wants him tried on bribery, misuse of government funds and taking part in death-squad killings.
“Last Samurai” Fujimori loses Japan election bid
AFP TOKYO
Petroleumworld.com
July 30, 2007
Peru’s ex-president Alberto Fujimori has lost his bid for a seat in Japan’s parliament after a campaign casting himself as “The Last Samurai” while under house arrest in Chile, results showed Monday.
Fujimori, who holds Japanese nationality thanks to his ancestry, entered the race for Japan’s upper house last month in a dramatic twist to the career of the former strongman who is wanted by Peru for alleged human rights abuses.
The 69-year-old, who cannot leave a house in Santiago, is believed to be the first former head of state ever to seek national office in another country.
He accepted the defeat, indicating that he hopes to return to politics in Peru once the extradition issue is settled.
“My main aim at this time remains to show my innocence in the extradition process in Chile,” he said in a statement issued by his office.
Fujimori said that although his election bid in Japan had failed, “today I reaffirm my will to work to strengthen relations between Peru and Japan.”
Fujimori ran as a candidate of a tiny political party in what critics saw as an attempt to thwart extradition efforts by Peru to bring him to trial.
The People’s New Party, a small conservative opposition group, won just two out of the 121 seats up for grabs, official results showed.
Fujimori was running on a proportional representation ticket. The party secured only one such seat and the former president was fourth on its list with 51,430 votes, official figures showed, dashing his election hopes.
Fujimori borrowed his slogan from a Tom Cruise film, calling himself “The Last Samurai,” and pledging in a campaign video from Chile to restore Japanese traditional values of hard work and humility.
As president, the US-educated academic was widely credited with taming economic chaos and subduing Peru’s violent Maoist Shining Path insurgency.
Critics say, however, that in the process he crushed civil liberties, rigged elections and committed human rights abuses, including murder.
He fled to Tokyo in 2000 amid a corruption probe and faxed his resignation from a hotel.
After five years of exile in Japan, Fujimori unexpectedly arrived in Chile in November 2005, hoping to run in Peru’s 2006 presidential election, leading to his arrest in Santiago and prolonged trial with the Chilean justice system.
AFP 30 0551 GMT 07 07
Copyright© 2007 AFP. All rights reserved.
Japón lo desprecia
Cesar Hildebrandt
La Primera, 30 de julio del 2007
La primera versión en inglés de la agencia oficial de noticias japonesa –Kyodo News- le dedicó ayer 10 esmirriadas líneas al fracaso electoral de ese paisano que da vergüenza a los nipones de bien y que aquí defiende la peor gentuza de la política nacional.
De esas diez líneas, cuatro estaban dedicadas a los cargos criminales que pesan sobre el sujeto en cuestión en su proceso de extradición.
Y las otras seis ni siquiera aludían a las cifras obtenidas por el secuaz de Montesinos en la lucha por obtener una silla en la cámara alta.
A las 5 y 30 de la tarde, sin embargo, Kyodo News redujo a sólo 8 líneas el despacho sobre Fujimori y cambió el título: en vez de llamar “desafortunado” (unlikely) al intento del prófugo encabezó el envío con un rotundo: “Ex-Peruvian President Fujimori fails to win Diet seat in Japan” (Ex presidente peruano Fujimori fracasa en obtener un asiento en el Senado de Japón”).
La sutileza hería al prófugo y a su banda. La cultura del éxito japonesa trataba ahora de casi exclusivamente “peruano” al nonato senador. Ya no era el samurai conquistador sino el mestizo incómodo que quiso blindarse con el parlamentarismo de su patria emocional.
La gente se había reído de su propaganda de guerrero que alguna vez, cuando ni las balas rozaban, quiso asilarse en la embajada de su país ancestral. La gente quizás recordó a Fujimori paseándose entre sus cadáveres media hora después de que el operativo Chavín de Huántar terminara y cuando Montesinos le avisó –convenientemente tarde para que no le quitara cámara antes de tiempo- que el peligro ya había pasado.
Porque obtener alrededor de siete mil votos de una población electoral de 104 millones de electores es como sacar 180 votos en el Perú, o sea el 000.1 por ciento que ha “logrado” este pobre diablo de alcance universal.
Cómo será la cosa que hasta Carlitos Raffo ha tenido que reconocer, preñado más que nunca de amor por el asesino en serie al que ha jurado entregar su estupidez hasta el último día de su vida, la derrota. Cómo será la cosa que el congresista Rolando Reátegui contó ayer mismo que la mayor parte de la bancada fujimorista consideró un error del fugitivo candidatear en el Japón y que ahora don Alberto “tendrá que evaluar muy seriamente su futuro personal, aunque yo creo que ya no regresará al Perú” (Despacho 135574 de Andina). Cómo será la cosa que
Kanako Otsuji, la primera candidata lesbiana a la Dieta japonesa, estaba –al cierre de la tarde de ayer– a punto de obtener una victoria inesperada en una sociedad tan formalmente conservadora como la japonesa. Y cómo será la cosa, por último, que frente a los siete mil votos de Fujimori se erguían los 217,000 votos de Akiko Kamei, obtenidos en el distrito electoral de Shimane, y los dos millones doscientos mil votos logrados, gracias a la repartición proporcional, por el Kokumin Shinto, el partidejo al que se arrimó Fujimori después de ser rechazado por el gran triunfador de ayer, el Partido Demócrata.
Qué tragedia para el doctor García la derrota de su avecindado socio congresal. Ahora, sin armadura parlamentaria japonesa, hasta puede ser posible que Fujimori sea extraditado.
Y si lo es, este pacto infame del que se habla a media voz, esta alianza de territorios como en el Chicago de los 30, este comercio de intereses que asegura el proseguimiento de lo mismo, esta vaina confederada en la que Gonzales Posada aparece como el capo pasado de vueltas, todo esto puede temblequear, mancharse de algún principio, derrumbarse ante los ojos de espanto de Rafael Rey –el mayor ideólogo del Apra en la última década–. Qué maravilloso horror sería, digo yo.
Chile: Torture victims file criminal suit against Fujimori
By Benjamin Witte (benwitte@santiagotimes.cl)
The Santiago Times
July 30, 2007
Lawyer Hugo Guitiérrez: “Torture Can Be Prosecuted Wherever The Torturer Is”
(July 30, 2007) Two Chilean lawyers last week filed a criminal suit against ex-Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, demanding that the former head-of-state be held accountable for the torture of two Peruvians currently living in Chile as refugees.
To make things worse for Fujimori, he was also badly defeated in Sunday’s Japanese Senate elections, making it impossible to claim special legal privileges he might have enjoyed as a legislator.
The lawyers, Hugo Gutiérrez and Hiram Villagra, presented the suit on behalf of María Elena Loayza and César Mamani Valverde.
In early 1993, according to the lawsuit, Loayza was apprehended, raped and tortured by Peruvian government counter-terrorism agents, who accused her of membership in the Shining Path guerrilla organization. A university professor at the time, Loayza denies any such association.
A year earlier, in May 1992 – just weeks after Fujimori’s April 15 “self-coup” – Mamani Valverde was also arrested. Peruvian authorities held him in the infamous Castro Castro prison, where he claims he was repeatedly tortured. Valverde lost an eye as a result of the brutal treatment. That same month, government forces massacred some 42 inmates in the prison, located in the town of San Juan de Lurigancho.
“In the wake of the self-coup, they were victimized by security forces of the Fujimori dictatorship,” Gutiérrez told the Santiago Times. “They’re refugees in Chile, and they understand that their human rights were violated, that they were subjected to torture. Since (torture) is a crime that can be prosecuted wherever the torturer is, they’ve asked that the Chilean state pursue this as a criminal case.”
The lawyers and their clients are hoping the suit will serve as a backup measure should Chile’s Supreme Court ultimately decide to deny Peru’s request that Fujimori be sent home to face charges of corruption and human rights violations. “If Fujimori isn’t going to be extradited to Peru, (Loayza and Mamani Valverde) want him to at least be tried here in Chile for his crimes,” said Gutiérrez.
Meanwhile, according to the Tokyo Broadcasting System, Fujimori garnered only 8,225 votes in Sunday’s Japanese Senate election. That figure only sufficed for a fourth-place finish amongst the candidates from Fujimori’s party, the NPC. In spite of his recent legal troubles, Fujimori had decided to launch an all-out bid for the Japanese Senate from within Chile.
Fujimori governed Peru from 1990 to 2000 before internal pressures forced his flight to Japan, where he famously tendered his resignation via fax. He remained in Japan for five years, taking advantage of his Japanese citizenship – something he inherited from his parents, both Japanese immigrants to Peru – to protect himself not only from requests that he be extradited to Peru, but also from two separate international arrest warrants.
Then, on Nov. 6, 2005, for reasons that are not entirely clear, Fujimori flew to Chile, where, once his presence became known, police arrested and detained him (ST, Nov. 7-8, 2005). The ex-president has been in legal limbo ever since.
Peruvian authorities originally asked that Fujimori, who’s been indicted on various charges in his native Peru, be immediately surrendered to them. Chile, however, opted to place the decision in the hands of its Supreme Court, following protocol set by a 1932 extradition treaty between the two countries.
Prosecutors in Peru accuse Fujimori of numerous crimes ranging from illegal telephone tapping, to inappropriate use of state funds, to state-sponsored massacres. They suggest, among other things, that the then-president had direct knowledge of and may have even ordered anti-subversion operations carried out by the so-called Colina Group. An infamous death squad, the Colina Group is thought to be responsible for at least two group killings: one in 1991 in the Barrios Altos neighborhood of Lima, the other in 1992 at the University of La Cantuta. Twenty-five people, including a small child and a professor, were murdered in the two massacres (ST, Dec. 22, 2005).
Fujimori’s extradtion case crept forward at a snails pace for more than a year, regaining momentum early last month when Supreme Court prosecutor Mónica Maldonado finally made public her much-anticipated “official” recommendation. Maldonado endorsed the extradition request, judging there to be sufficient evidence in most of the 12 cases originally presented against the ex-Peruvian president (ST, June 8).
Two weeks ago, however, Chile’s Supreme Court did a complete about-face. On July 11, Judge Orlando Álvarez ruled against extradition, dismissing all 12 charges against Fujimori. “In all 12 of these cases, the (evidence) does not sufficiently demonstrate that Alberto Fujimori participated to the extent that the extradition request suggests. It’s therefore possible to deduce that in this case the defendant hasn’t committed the crimes for which he’s been accused,” the Supreme Court judge concluded (ST, July 12).
The ruling came as a shock for many here in Chile – particularly as it ran so counter to the Court’s own official recommendation.
“I think he did a poor job of handling the elements that needed to be considered, and he caused tremendous damage to the credibility of Chile’s justice system,” Socialist Party Sen. Naranjo told the Santiago Times. “He also very much hurt our country’s international image, because anyone who’s even somewhat informed can draw from this ruling (the conclusion) that in our country human rights violators and state terrorists like Fujimori enjoy impunity.”
The extradition case, currently under appeal, now returns to the Supreme Court, where it will be examined by a panel of five judges. Analysts expect the upcoming ruling – which will be binding – to be issued within the next two to three months.
Fujimori not likely to win seat
Blog Fruits and Votes
29 July 2007
Planted by Professor Matthew Søberg Shugart, Head Orchardist
Alberto Fujimori is running fifth in preference votes in the People’s New Party national list, with around 6,000 50,000 votes in the end (according to an e-mail I received from someone who follows Japan). The party has no chance of winning that many seats in today’s upper house election.
Still wanted in Peru, Alberto Fujimori runs for office in Japan
Peru’s former leader is competing in Japan’s parliamentary vote Sunday … from house arrest in Chile.
By Yuriko Nagano | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the July 25, 2007 edition
TOKYO – For most politicians, fame is an asset. But it’s yet to be seen whether it will help Alberto Kenya Fujimori win a seat in Japan’s Upper House on Sunday.
Mr. Fujimori reserves the distinction of being Japan’s only Upper House candidate to conduct his campaign while under house arrest. He is the only candidate to have previously been elected president of a foreign nation. He is also the only aspiring member of the Upper House to have been indicted on more than 20 counts of corruption and human rights violations, including sanctioning death squads – charges he denies.
Fujimori was arrested in Chile in 2005, where he still lives under house arrest, awaiting possible extradition to Peru, the country he ruled from 1990 to 2000. [Editor’s note: The original version omitted the word “possible.”]
His critics accuse him of running for office in Japan to avoid his outstanding charges in Peru, but many Japanese voters don’t even know he’s running.
“If elected, he must really want to accomplish something here [to run in such a condition],” says resident Ako Nakatsu on a recent day in Tokyo’s lively Shibuya district.
On his website, Fujimori vows to help Japan’s counterterrorism efforts, resolve Japan’s abduction issue with North Korea, and aid Japan in building friendly relations with Latin American countries.
“Politicians in Japan are all amateurs,” says resident Hiroshi Kato, adding that Japan would benefit from Fujimori’s strong Latin America ties. “We need experienced politicians like Fujimori.”
WHAT’S hard for some here to believe, however, is that Fujimori’s bid is legal.
Fujimori is a citizen of both Japan and Peru, even though dual citizenship typically is prohibited in Japan. Shizuka Kamei, acting leader of Fujimori’s People’s New Party, says Fujimori’s Japanese residency is intact because he left using a Japanese passport and is technically “traveling in Chile.” The government of Japan denies giving Fujimori any special treatment.
Even Fujimori’s harshest critics say it’s possible that he could win a seat in Sunday’s vote. “Japanese view Fujimori as a celebrity-type politician,” says Kazuo Ohgushi, professor of Latin American politics at the University of Tokyo and organizer for human rights group Japan Network for Bringing Fujimori to Justice. “People think he’s interesting, someone who has humor.”
But Fujimori himself is dead serious about getting elected.
“Fujimori must have felt like a drowning man clutching at a straw to run in this election,” says Yusuke Murakami, associate professor at the Center for Integrated Area Studies at Kyoto University.
Mr. Murakami says Fujimori is running because of his need to be in a position of power.
Fujimori has been away from politics for more than five years. “I think his pragmatic personality drove him to take a chance in Japan where he thinks he can be useful,” he says.
For his part, Fujimori is hoping the government of Japan influences Chile for his release. As election day approaches, Fujimori’s celebrity pals such as Dewi Sukarno, former wife of Indonesian President Sukarno, are campaigning for him, calling Fujimori the “Last Samurai.”
As a direct message to voters, Fujimori delivers a short speech on his website in not-so-smooth Japanese from what looks like the backyard of a sunny villa.
With a relaxed smile, he says: “I will vow to fight for … the country of the samurai with my life.”