Fujimori Favored For Re-Election In Peru Vote

When Peruvians go into the voting booths today, President Alberto K. Fujimori, who is seeking a second term, has urged them to ask themselves a familiar campaign question: “Are you better off today than you were five years ago?”

For most Peruvians, it appears that the answer is yes. Fujimori, who is credited with reorganizing Peru’s shattered economy and crushing a long and brutal insurgency by Shining Path guerrillas, holds a commanding lead over his rivals in the latest opinion polls. He is widely expected to win in the first round of balloting.

“I’m a candidate who has shown he gets things done and does not just make promises,” Fujimori said last week as he broke a bottle of champagne to inaugurate a new hydroelectric project in the Andes that will bring water to 3 million people in Lima’s shantytowns. “I have a stamp of guarantee the other candidates don’t have.”

The comments were typical of Fujimori, 56, who has been known to pass out posters featuring photographs of himself at openings of the many schools, roads and other public works projects that his administration has undertaken.

Since taking office in 1990, Fujimori has introduced free-market economic reforms, including a sweeping privatization program. Peru had the highest growth rate of any country in the world last year - 12 percent - and inflation was 15.4 percent in 1994, compared with 7,650 percent in 1990.

Fujimori has remained immensely popular even though his reforms have not addressed the country’s widespread unemployment and poverty. Only one in seven workers has a full-time job in Peru, and half of Peru’s 23 million people live below the official poverty level.

Voting is mandatory in Peru, and about 12.4 million people are eligible to cast ballots in today’s elections for president, two vice presidents and 120 congressional seats.