Alberto Fujimori - Second Term

Second Term

The 1993 Constitution allowed Fujimori to run for a second term, and in April 1995, at the height of his popularity, Fujimori easily won reelection with almost two-thirds of the vote. His major opponent, former Secretary-General of the United Nations Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, won only 22 percent of the vote. Fujimori's supporters won comfortable majorities in the legislature. One of the first acts of the new congress was to declare an amnesty for all members of the Peruvian military or police accused or convicted of human rights abuses between 1980 and 1995.

During his second term, Fujimori signed a peace agreement with Ecuador over a border dispute that had simmered for more than a century. The treaty allowed the two countries to obtain international funds for developing the border region. Fujimori also settled some unresolved issues with Chile, Peru's southern neighbor, outstanding since the Treaty of Lima of 1929.

The 1995 election was the turning point in Fujimori's career. Peruvians now began to be more concerned about freedom of speech and the press. However, before he was sworn in for a second term, Fujimori stripped two universities of their autonomy and reshuffled the national electoral board. This led his opponents to call him "Chinochet," a reference to his previous nickname and to Chilean ruler Augusto Pinochet.

According to a poll by the Peruvian Research and Marketing Company conducted in 1997, 40.6% of Lima residents considered President Fujimori an authoritarian.

In addition to the nature of democracy under Fujimori, Peruvians were becoming increasingly interested in the myriad criminal allegations involving Fujimori and his chief of the National Intelligence Service, Vladimiro Montesinos. A 2002 report by Health Minister Fernando Carbone would later suggest that Fujimori was involved in the forced sterilizations of up to 300,000 indigenous women from 1996 to 2000, as part of a population control program. A 2004 World Bank publication would suggest that, in this period, Montesinos' abuse of the power accorded him by Fujimori "led to a steady and systematic undermining of the rule of law".