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Room for Improvement

The Organization of American States (OAS) clearly played a constructive role in Peru’s recent return to democracy, and Andrew Cooper and Thomas Legler provide an interesting and useful account of its involvement. At the same time, I believe that they overstate the importance of the OAS contribution to bringing down the regime of President Alberto Fujimori. Furthermore, a consideration of the factors that limited the OAS’s effectiveness can yield some useful lessons for the future. OAS involvement in Peru in 2000 began with the Election Observation Mission led by former Guatemalan foreign minister Eduardo Stein. From its arrival in Peru on March 2 until its withdrawal before the presidential runoff between Fujimori and Alejandro Toledo scheduled for May 28, the mission carefully evaluated campaign conditions and the ballottabulation process. Working with other observer delegations, the OAS mission urged the Fujimori government to level the electoral playing field and to ensure the transparency of the computer systems at the National Electoral Processes Office. In particular, the OAS mission asked that the runoff be postponed so that improvements could be made. When more time was not allowed, the OAS mission (and all other major election-observation missions) declined to observe the May 28 exercise, which was boycotted by Toledo. The mission’s final report concluded that, “with respect to international standards, the Peruvian electoral process is far from being considered free and fair.” 1 For the first time in the history of OAS election observation, a Latin American election had clearly and carefully been judged illegitimate.