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Change Your Life! |
Key facts about Peru elections |
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News
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April 10, 2000
UNDATED, (AP) - Key facts about Peru, which holds elections to choose the president and Congress on Sunday:
ELECTION : More than 14 million voters are registered to take part in the presidential election. President Alberto Fujimori, seeking an unprecedented third five-year term, faces eight opponents. Only one candidate, Alejandro Toledo, is considered a serious threat. A runoff would be scheduled in late May or early June if no candidate achieves a majority.
On Sunday, voters also will choose a new 120-member unicameral Congress. |
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CANDIDATES : Fujimori, 61, was first elected in 1990 as a political unknown. He seized dictatorial powers in April 1992, dissolving Congress and closing the courts. A new constitution was written and a new Congress elected, dominated by his supporters. He was re-elected in 1995 by Peruvians grateful to him for stemming guerrilla violence and ending the economic chaos of the 1980s. His supporters in Congress removed a constitutional barrier to a third consecutive term and fired three constitutional tribunal judges who objected to the move.
Toledo, 54, is a politically moderate economist supported mostly by a mix of poor urban migrants and middle-class Peruvians disenchanted with Fujimori's inability to produce jobs and higher wages.
COUNTRY: Peru is the third-largest country in South America. Flanked by the Pacific Ocean to the west, it is bordered by Ecuador and Colombia to the north, Brazil and Bolivia to the east, and Chile to the South. More than 30 percent of the population of 25 million lives in the capital, Lima. Peru is divided into three geographical regions: the coastal desert, the Andean highlands, and the Amazon jungle.
ECONOMY: In the early 1990s, Fujimori tamed hyperinflation, reversed Peru's pariah image with international lenders and implemented liberal, free-market policies with remarkable success. Growth averaged more than 7 percent annually, but the trend ended in his second term, as Asian financial turmoil spread throughout Latin America and Peru was rocked by the El Nino weather phenomenon. About half the population lives in poverty and only one in two people in the labor force has steady work.
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