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Move over Bill Clinton; Here comes Peru's Alejandro Toledo


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By Claudio Campuzano
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

August 8, 2002

In what some could see as bid to top the problems Bill Clinton when he was at the White House, Peru's president Alejandro Toledo personal life is now between a rock and a hard place.

On the one hand, a Peruvian court ruled a few weeks ago that he must take a DNA test in August to establish if he is the father of a 14-year-old girl in a high-profile paternity suit that has been going on for months. Her mother, Lucrecia Orozco-who says she had a relationship with Toledo in the 1980s-has been pushing for him to take the test to establish whether or not he is the father of her daughter Zarai. She wants him to legally recognize the girl, now 14 years old.

Later, the Supreme Court stayed the order and has not yet announced its decision, but an overwhelming majority of Peruvians-some polls show 90 percent-believe he should submit to the test.

While Zarai bears Toledo's surname, he insists that she is not his daughter. The teen, who lives in the northern city of Piura, has never spoken to Toledo and only seen him in person twice. Previous blood tests have shown a strong genetic match between them.

On the other hand, as Toledo suggested he might indeed take the test-as part of his effort to regain popularity, which is now below 20 percent-his current wife, Belgian Eliane Karp, with whom he has a 20-year-old daughter, is said to be so angry about this possible decision that she has left the country, with Hawaii and Europe mentioned as probable destinations.

Leading Lima's daily El Expreso notes that the First Lady didn't show up for some of the events celebrating the national holiday, July 28 and 29, and says that she left with her daughter, Shantal, by the northern frontier to Ecuador, from where she flew abroad. This would explain, the paper says, why the president suddenly rushed on an unannounced trip to a town in northern Peru: to meet with his wife and attempt to persuade her not to leave.

Moreover, Eliane Karp Toledo is no Hillary Rodham Clinton, who stuck by her man no matter what. The word around Lima is that Mrs. Toledo has advised Mr. Toledo that if he goes ahead with recognizing Zarai she would call a press conference in which she would divulge some uncomfortable facts about who financed his campaigns in 2000 and 2001.

Would that Toledo were as lucky as Clinton, who managed to coast over his personal problems because he was presiding over a sound economy. Even before this personal scandal broke, Toledo's popularity had been plummeting down from 70 percent as, after one year in office, he has not been able to meet the promises on jobs and prosperity he made during his campaign.

In June, protests against the sale of two state-owned energy companies in southern Peru broke into rioting that killed two and injured dozens, forcing Toledo to suspend the privatizations. Protesters say the privatizations lead to rate hikes and job cuts.

More recently, Toledo faced more than a week of protests by farmers in a remote northern jungle that sought to win concessions from the government to protect their livelihood from low prices for their crops.

A negotiating team led by Agriculture Minister Alvaro Quijandria wrapped up 13 hours of talks with farmers in the early hours of last Saturday, ending a nine-day strike and sometimes violent protests sparked by historically low rice prices. The government, which blames low prices on overproduction, agreed to buy up more of their rice than originally promised and to invest in improving roads in the area. It also agreed to consider the possibility of granting certain tax exemptions.

But giving in to these demand further upsets efforts to bring back Peruvian economy to fiscal soundness-a basic requirement for attracting much needed foreign investment- as the government is already strapped for cash after the collapse of its privatization plans left it some $800 million short this year.

It's not at all clear how Toledo can succeed in the uphill struggle he faces. Polls show at least half the country believes he is a liar or at least fails to deliver on wild promises, that he has achieved nothing in his first year and that their lot was better under hard-line President Alberto Fujimori, who was fired in a huge corruption scandal in 2000.

Claudio Campuzano (claudio-campuzano@hotmail.com) is U.S, correspondent for the Latin American newsweekly Tiempos del Mundo and editorial page editor of the New York daily Noticias del Mundo. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com

August 8, 2002



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