The return of the shadow of Vladimiro Montesinos on the Peruvian political scene, 20 years after his capture

Electoral uncertainty and courtroom operations to delay the process were reminiscent of the decade of the 1990s, years of institutional decay. The flashback came to life with the reappearance of Vladimiro Montesinos, the almighty former adviser to Alberto Fujimori, on the 20th anniversary of his capture in a slum in Venezuela.

Audios released this week and confirmed by authorities show coordination and instructions to attempt to bribe three of the four members of the plenary session of the National Election Jury, the latest body which examines the requests for nullity of the tables presented by Fuerza Popular with the aim of reversing the advantage of 44,000 votes of Pedro Castillo over Keiko Fujimori.

According to the official version, Montesinos had permission to call his partner from the Callao naval base, a prison created especially for the confinement of the most dangerous terrorists, like Abimael Guzmán and other leaders of the Shining Path.

In case any echoes of the past were missing, the audios were presented by former congressman Fernando Olivera, the same who revealed the mythical “VladivideosIn September 2000 and which brought about the fall of the Fujimori regime, revealing the purchase of the support of opposition parliamentarians.

Give it more gas

“With three (members), that’s enough. Then it would be nice for you to locate it so that it can support, you have to put gasoline (money). You understand me, don’t you?”, Montesinos points out to retired soldier Pedro Rojas, who he asks to contact lawyer Guillermo Sendón, with links in the Judiciary.

“This capsule (by twisting the process) costs you 3 sticks (millions of dollars). A costume (million) for each. And you pay it against delivery, on top of that. First you get the resolution and then you pay them“, He said. A few days ago, three judges approved the modification of the deadlines for requesting cancellation, an extension that would promote Fujimorism, but the measure was known before it was published and was never made official. , on the grounds that it would violate a decision of the Constitutional Court on the imperative deadlines of the electoral process.

In another appeal, Montesinos also disparages the Fujimori advisory team and assures us that they are only acting to want to help the Fujimori family. “What do I gain by helping them?” Nothing. I’m not interested and I will never ask for anything, I just help because otherwise they screwed up. The girl will end up in jail and the other will die where he is, that’s the situation”. The daughter is Keiko Fujimori, who is the subject of a request from the prosecution for 30 years in prison. The “other gentleman” is his father, convicted of crimes against humanity and who should be pardoned if his daughter wins the presidency, as he had promised during the campaign.

In another passage, Montesinos regrets that the measures he recommended for the campaign had not been taken and to prevent a victory for leftist Castillo: “If we had done the job we had proposed, we would no longer be in this shit problem. “

Waiting for your chance

José Ugaz, former ad hoc lawyer for the Fujimori-Montesinos case, analyzed the situation in dialogue with Infobae: “Montesinos was waiting for this opportunity. Still out of jail he tried to hold some validity”. The detainee, who still has five years in prison, usually posts social media messages about the national situation through his lawyer.

The former anti-corruption prosecutor, who recounts his investigation in detail in the book The one who fails, does not exclude that the former advisor himself is involved in the filtering of audio. “The story is very horrible, strange. It looks like Montesinos has one foot on each side. It is an attempt to muddy the waters in general at a time when the Jury is trying by all means to end this story with the pressures which mainly come from Fujimori’s side. All this contributes to this situation of uncertainty. The only thing we hope is that by making its best dribbles, the Jury will be able to avoid all these firecrackers and close this next week ”.

The case aggravates social unrest in a population strongly polarized in the face of the ballot. “The reappearance annoys and indignant us,” Prime Minister Violeta Bermúdez said. But the flight is not necessarily adversity for Fujimori. Ultimately, the content of the audios raised doubts about the legitimacy of the election authorities, which were increasingly criticized by Fujimori’s team.

“There must be some level of coordination with Fujimori, as it is now clear that what candidate Fujimori and her closest supporters, the hardest core, intend to backfire on the election and try to invalidate the process when it is obvious that she has already lost.Ugaz added. The campaign, which includes calls for sedition and ignorance of institutions by retired military personnel, has been described as a “slow coup” by prestigious political scientists Alberto Vergara and Steven Levitsky in a column by opinion of New York Times.

The process of examining appeals for annulment requests (rejected at first instance) is the last remaining step before Castillo’s triumph is proclaimed, but the matter has been put on hold due to the resignation of Supreme Prosecutor Luis Arce ( closest to Fujimorism), who left the JNE plenary session without a quorum.

The prosecution has announced an investigation, but all eyes are on the Navy, in charge of managing the naval base. According to the first press release from this institution, Montesinos made two calls from a public telephone on June 10 and 23. But the investigation portal IDL-Reporteros revealed this Saturday that Montesinos had spoken 12 times with Rejas between Wednesday, June 2 (four days before the poll) and June 24.

“We must not lose sight of the fact that many members of the Navy are by ideology, by trajectory, by social extraction, it is the Armed Forces more of the upper bourgeoisie than there is in the country, unlike the Army and the Air Force . There must be many, many Keiko Fujimori supporters, if there were any who sympathized with Castillo”Ugaz explained.

Although he avoids targeting the institution directly, he points out that one or more members have lent themselves to the situation, knowing that calls must be dialed by base personnel and monitored. “It is clear that someone within the Navy played a role in this story. This is unfortunate because it reveals that even in such a special prison regime there are spaces for corruption.“, Held.

This Saturday, the Ministry of Defense indicated that four naval officers from the detention center, including their boss, were relieved “immediately”.

Since Fujimori, there hasn’t been a big reaction. Lawyer Miguel Torres, one of the visible faces of Fujimori’s legal strategy to reverse the outcome, said the publication is “a novel that is armed among those who are public enemies of Keiko Fujimori.”

The outlook looks complicated for Fuerza Popular after an alleged fraud was ruled out by several observation missions, including the OAS. In addition, the United States, the European Union, Canada and the United Kingdom have approved the fair, free and transparent elections.

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