Pubdate: Fri, 06 Apr 2001 Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA) Copyright: 2001 San Jose Mercury News Contact: http://www.sjmercury.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/390 Author: Kevin G. Hall JADED BY POLITICAL TURMOIL, PERUVIANS PREPARE TO VOTE LIMA, Peru -- Politics-weary Peruvians will vote for a new president and Congress on Sunday after Alberto Fujimori's corrupt government collapsed last November. But the nasty final weeks of campaigning suggest that Peru may find it hard to escape its tumultuous political past. This Andean nation has been a key economic and anti-drug partner for the United States in South America. Its government collapsed last year as Washington launched a $1.3 billion military aid program for counternarcotics efforts next door in Colombia, and its continued political instability would be worrisome for U.S. policy and the entire Andean region. Election front-runner Alejandro Toledo has fended off charges of cocaine use and fathering a child out of wedlock. The tabloid press has said challenger Lourdes Flores, an unmarried conservative lawmaker, is a lesbian. Disgraced former President Alan Garc(acu)a, who left office in 1990 with inflation running higher than 2,000 percent, suddenly seemed presidential timber again and surged in popularity in the final weeks of the campaign. By law, campaigning stopped Thursday. No candidate is likely to win an outright majority, in which case a runoff between the top two vote winners would follow in May. Toledo, widely viewed as cheated out of the presidency last year by Fujimori, is comfortably ahead in the polls. The race for second place is too close to call. Voting is mandatory in Peru, but two weeks before the election, 20 percent to 30 percent of voters were still undecided. ``For the majority of voters, I think, there is a crisis of credibility in the candidates,'' said Carlos Tapia, an independent political analyst in Lima. ``Most voters don't believe the candidates.'' Citing a ``generalized cynicism,'' Tapia said the fall of Fujimori's government and a decade of unmet political promises had soured Peruvians. Fujimori abandoned the presidency in November; his powerful spymaster and close ally, Vladimiro Montesinos, was already a fugitive. Then Peru was riveted by the release of videos secretly taped by Montesinos that purported to document corruption in Congress, the courts, election supervisors, military brass and business elites. An interim government has jailed Fujimori's top three military leaders. All three leading candidates are suspect. Toledo is accused of trying to kill the story of his alleged cocaine use by offering a campaign post to an investigative reporter. Toledo admits he tested positive for cocaine use, but says he was drugged against his will by agents of Fujimori. Flores campaigns with the brother of a mayor who was videotaped receiving at least $30,000 from Montesinos. Garc(acu)a allegedly received more than $1 million in kickbacks during his rule from 1985 to 1990. His former interior minister was videotaped receiving $100,000 from Montesinos. Perhaps the only reason for cheer this weekend is that the election supervisory organization, known by the Spanish acronym ONPE, has had a thorough scrubbing. Under Fujimori, the ONPE was accused last year of stacking the election against Toledo. Fernando Tuesta, a respected political analyst and professor, heads the new ONPE. He has replaced more than three-quarters of its 12,000 members and put in place a professional unbiased staff supported by nearly 40 international elections consultants from the United States, Europe and Latin America. ``There will not be irregularities from inside the ONPE. We are watching so that the irregularities do not come from the outside in,'' vows Tuesta. For the first time in Peruvian elections, voter education material was printed in five indigenous languages, accommodations are being made for people with disabilities and an office was established to investigate complaints from voters. All 57 voter-tabulation centers have monitoring areas for campaigns to watch the votes entered into a computer. The closed-door operations of the ONPE last year were criticized as one of the avenues for fraud. The OAS and the election-monitoring group Transparencia praise Tuesta's efforts. ``Last year, the referee was dirty. This year, he is clean,'' said Rafael Rongcagliolo, secretary-general of Transparencia in Lima. - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk