Fujimori, Alberto (Kenya) (1938– )

Peruvian politician, president 1990–2000. He pursued free-market economic policies that led to economic stability and growth, but a widening gap between rich and poor. In 1992 he sided with the military in a coup to dissolve the Peruvian Congress and to increase his powers, allow him to seek re-election, and fight domestic terrorism. He became increasingly authoritarian and was forced from office in 2000 by popular protests against government corruption and tampered elections. He fled to Japan, and later Chile, and the Peruvian Congress barred him from holding elective office for 10 years. He was succeeded by Alejandro Toleda (1946– ).

He was elected president in 1990 as leader of the new Cambio 90 (Change 90), and, with a grass-roots campaign, attracted the support of the poorwith a strong appeal to the poor, to surprisingly defeat his more experienced Democratic Front opponent, and world-renowned writer, Mario Vargas Llosa. In April 1992, he closed the hostile Congress and imposed military rule to help tackle the domestic terrorist threat, launching a military campaign against the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas and the left-wing Túpac Amarú Revolutionary Movement (MRTA). In August 1994, Fujimori dismissed his wife Susana Higuchi as first lady, claiming that she was ‘disloyal’ and opposed him politically. She denied the charges and unsuccessfully challenged his leadership. He was re-elected president in 1995 and his successful handling of a hostage crisis at the Japanese embassy in Lima 1996–97, when over 80 people were held by MRTA guerrillas, helped improve his reputation. He was re-elected in 2000 for a constitutionally unsound third term, but there were popular protests against election fraud and in November 2000, with Congress considering ousting him on the grounds of ‘moral incompetence’, he resigned, while in Japan Fujimori was declared an absent criminal by a Peruvian judge on 3 August 2002, and an international arrest warrant was issued.

Fujimori was born in Lima, the son of Japanese immigrants, and educated in agricultural engineering, graduating in 1961 from the Universidad Nacional Agraria de la Molina. He then studied at the University of Wisconsin, USA, obtaining a masters degree in mathematics, and became dean of the Universidad Nacional Agraria de la Molina in 1984.