Fujimori's daughter poised to win in Peru

LIMA, Peru — The candidate has a winning smile, a degree from Boston University and a new American husband whose aw-shucks demeanor and boyish good looks go over well in Peru. But she is only 30 and has never held elective office.

Still, with the last name Fujimori, as in Alberto Fujimori, the former strongman who ruled Peru with an iron hand, the candidate, Keiko Fujimori, is very likely to do more than win a seat in Congress in today's general election.

Polls show that she may draw more votes than any of the other 2,600 candidates running for the 120 seats. That would ensure that a Fujimori presides over the swearing-in of fellow members of Congress and whoever is elected president.

"I think that a great part of the support is because I'm the daughter of Alberto Fujimori, and obviously I'm the recipient of the love and gratitude that people have for my father," said Fujimori.

Many in Peru remember Alberto Fujimori with disdain for the corruption and scandal that ended his 10-year rule in 2000, and sent him fleeing to his ancestral homeland, Japan.

But some influential supporters remain faithful, recalling how he delivered largess and security, opened schools and roads, and crushed two rebel movements. With their help, Alberto Fujimori even planned a comeback, flying to neighboring Chile in November.

But Chilean authorities detained him, and Peru is now seeking his extradition, accusing him of hijacking democracy and directing death squads during an administration that prosecutors call a quasi-dictatorship steeped in graft and rights abuses. For now, he remains in detention in Chile.

His daughter's party, Alliance for the Future, which is fielding candidates for president and Congress and may become the fourth-largest party in Peru, is a fusion of pro-Fujimori movements intended to place Fujimoristas, as they are known, in Congress — and to help whitewash Alberto Fujimori's image. In fact, she said, her candidacy was his idea.

Fujimori said that her father proposed the idea when she and her husband, Mark Villanella, a former wrestler from New Jersey who has worked as an IBM consultant, visited him in Chile in November.

Fujimori recalled that she was on the verge of finishing her master's degree in business at Columbia University and planning on a comfortable life in New York. "The hard part," she said, "was telling Mark's parents."

Fujimori said she was not worried about her lack of experience in office, because she assumed the role of first lady at 19, after her parents divorced. That took her across Peru, where she dispensed aid to poor mothers and children, making her something of an Eva Peron-like figure in this Andean country.

"I was at my father's side as first lady for six years," she said. "I've been in power, and I know it's at times lonely. But I also know power well used can change many people's lives."

She blames Vladimiro Montesinos, the disgraced former spy chief now jailed outside Lima, for the corruption that swirled around her father.

A special team of prosecutors investigating Fujimori-era crimes says that Montesinos has outlined the funneling of hundreds of thousands of dollars to Fujimori's children, too. But Fujimori denies any corruption herself, noting that charges against her were dropped.

On Wednesday night, there was plenty of evidence that at least some Peruvians believe her. She was among the star attractions of a closing rally here in Lima for candidates of the Alliance for the Future.

At the rally, in the working-class San Juan de Lurigancho district, people saw Fujimori and other pro-Fujimori candidates — including former congressman Martha Chávez, who is running for president, and Alberto Fujimori's brother, Santiago, her running mate — as links to a better past.

"Fujimori was the one who came to see us, who visited every state and gave us loans to buy our houses," said Esther Laines, 50, who had pushed to the front of the crowd for a closer look at Keiko Fujimori. "It's Fujimori who gave us schools, highways and social security."

Alliance candidates, polls show, are likely to do well today. Fujimori is expected to get 14 percent of the vote, and her colleagues may win as many as 15 seats in Congress, a healthy bloc in the increasingly splintered legislature.

As she campaigns, Fujimori seems clear about her principal goal: making sure that her father does not languish in jail.

"I know my father will be exonerated," she said. "He will return to Peru, and he will return through the front door."