Analysis: Temporary Detainment of Opposition Leader Suggests Continued Strength of Anti-Corruption Drive
Category: Instability
Severity: 2 (Low)
Source: Drum Cussac
10/21/2018 (Peru) - Peruvian opposition leader Keiko Fujimori remained free on Saturday, 20 October, following her release two days ago from preventative police custody as part of an ongoing anti-corruption investigation. Prosecutors had called Fujimori, who leads the conservative populist "Popular Force" (FP) party, in for questioning on 10 October as part of their investigation involving the financing of her unsuccessful 2011 presidential campaign but ultimately chose to detain her for an initial period of 10 days after labelling her a flight risk and assessing that she could obstruct the investigation. Two of Fujimori's key advisors were also arrested earlier this week in yet another pre-trial detainment; those advisors were ordered by an appellate court to be released on Friday. Fujimori has blasted all the arrests as political persecution, though anti-corruption allegations have swirled around her for years.
The specific money laundering accusations in question stem from an alleged bribery scheme by Fujimori and involving the construction giant Odebrecht, which has already admitted to paying bribes throughout the Americas and beyond in exchange for lucrative government contracts. In Fujimori's case, she along with others have been accused of illegally accepting some USD1.2 million - generally as campaign contributions to her 2011 presidential campaign - from Odebrecht. While Fujimori did not win the presidency either that year or in her 2016 campaign, the FP is a pillar of Peruvian politics and holds considerable influence in Congress; though fractured, it currently controls the unicameral legislature. It is perhaps to this fracture that Fujimori has now begun to attend since being released from detainment, as her public remarks have referenced making efforts to achieve "unity of [her] family again". Many have understood such a phrasing to refer to situations regarding both her father, Alberto Fujimori, and brother, Kenji Fujimori.
Kenji Fujimori - currently a suspended member of Congress - has led a breakaway faction of the FP since splitting with his sister earlier this year. Although the Fujimori siblings' relationship had been strained since Keiko's 2016 presidential run, their spat became highly publicised over the past year following their differing approaches to the impeachment processes against then-President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, with Keiko largely being for impeachment and Kenji appearing to work behind the scenes against it. These tensions culminated in the publication - thought to be spearheaded by allies of Keiko - of a bribery scandal that helped bring about Kenji's suspension. Kenji, meanwhile, did appear to have succeeded in influencing Kuczynski's decision late last year to pardon the elder Alberto Fujimori, the country's former president and authoritarian leader who was imprisoned on crimes against humanity. Though Keiko had appeared conflicted over her father's legacy, she had pledged during her 2016 presidential campaign not to pardon him herself and clearly appeared to prefer Kuczynski's outright impeachment to any horse-trading that could have gotten the elder Fujimori his pardon. Further complicating matters, however, Fujimori's pardon was recently overturned by the country's high court. Thus, mending ties within the still powerful Fujimori political dynasty is likely a key strategy to re-solidify Keiko's own political standing as she comes under fire from the justice system and opponents within Congress, including from the breakaway FP faction led by Kenji.
Complicating the political dynamics for Keiko is the fact that, similar to elsewhere in Latin America, Peru finds itself in the middle of an anti-corruption, anti-establishment wave that has seen the FP's public support erode even as it maintains control of Congress. Some 70 per cent of Peruvians are estimated to have supported Keiko's detainment earlier this month, as her guilt appears to have been assumed a priori, particularly given that corruption allegations have long dodged her. Equally disruptive for the political establishment has been the case of audio recordings released this summer in which a number of high-profile judicial figures were caught engaging in bribery and other corrupt practices. The release of the recordings saw a number of officials either resign or be fired, and one - former Supreme Court Justice Cesar Hinostroza - went so far as to flee the country earlier this month, to the outrage of the government of current President Martin Vizcarra, who had barred Hinostroza from leaving Peru. Spanish officials arrested Hinostroza on Friday, with the Vizcarra government already petitioning for extradition. While corruption in Peruvian politics has always been assumed by the public as the norm (all five living previous presidents have either been felled by or remain at the centre of anti-corruption investigations, many also related to Odebrecht), the new pan-regional movement against graft and influence-peddling as well as hard evidence such as the judicial audio recordings and Odebrecht testimony have helped bring about something more akin to a zero-tolerance policy. This new dynamic has, in turn, seen Keiko's and the FP's collective star wane, as the FP in particular is a well-oiled political machine that embodies establishment politics, even if it is populist in nature.
President Vizcarra, by contrast, has seen his fortunes rise on the back of the anti-corruption movement. Although Vizcarra's presidency was accidental, as he assumed it only following Kuczynski's resignation in March of this year, his background as more of a low-key technocrat that eschewed the public limelight has boosted his anti-corruption credentials as he has made fighting graft a key part of his administration's core mission. In doing so, Vizcarra's political instincts are undoubtedly better than many give him credit for, as anti-corruption is quite clearly the zeitgeist of Latin America (including Peru) at the moment, and the public has rallied around Vizcarra, boosting his approval numbers to over 60 per cent. Vizcarra has in turn used this political capital to push through reforms that include a December national referendum on making Congress bicameral, imposing term limits, revamping aspects of the judiciary and regulating campaign finance. Though many of these proposed reforms go against the immediate self-interest of members of Congress, there has been increasingly less appetite to fight Vizcarra on the matter following both the in-fighting within the FP as well as the recognition of political headwinds. Thus, Vizcarra continues to hold the upper hand in his dealings with Congress, although the potential for a reunited Fujimori front even as Kenji remains suspended and the elder Fujimori returns to prison would undoubtedly prove a challenge, namely in the form of a potentially resurgent Keiko and FP. Her challenge, however, would lie in somehow co-opting or otherwise effectively championing the anti-corruption movement that is now targeting her, as the movement itself has shown considerable longevity in Latin America and is not expected to abate.
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