Alejandro Toledo

Alejandro Toledo

Alejandro Toledo Manrique (born March 28, 1946 in Ferrer, Cabana District , Peru ) is an economist and politician who was Peruvian President from July 28, 2001 to July 28, 2006 .

Biographical data

Alejandro Toledo was born in the village of Ferrer in the Pallasca province ( Ancash region ) in Peru, the fifth son of an indigenous family of poor agricultural workers. At the age of five, he and his family moved to the city of Chimbote . During his childhood he contributed to the livelihood of his family as a shoe shiner and street vendor. At the same time he attended a state primary school where he lived.

In 1979 he married in Belgium originating anthropologist Eliane Karp , whose parents are of Jewish descent. Toledo is resident in the United States after his tenure. His wife has u. a. Israeli citizenship.

Education and professional activity

Toledo received secondary school education at the Gran Unidad Escolar San Pedro de Chimbote . He showed above all skills in literary and journalistic terms. This helped him to obtain a scholarship in 1966 , which enabled him to study at the University of San Francisco in the United States . There he studied economics and obtained his bachelor's degree in 1970. He earned part of his money as a semi-professional in football . In the years 1971 and 1972 he obtained two Lizenziaturen of Stanford University . In 1976 he passed his doctoral examination.

Toledo then worked at the International Development Training Center at Stanford University , the UN headquarters , the World Bank , the Inter-American Development Bank, the United States Agency for International Development ( USAID ), UNICEF and the OECD . He lived in New York , Washington DC , Geneva and Paris .

Back in Peru, he worked as a consultant and inspector for the Institute for International Development at Harvard University and for Waseda University in Tokyo . He took up a teaching position in finance and accounting at the Escuela de Administración de Negocios (ESAN) in Lima and Head of the Institute for Economic Development (Instituto de Desarrollo Económico, IDE).

Entry into politics

In December 1994, Toledo announced his candidacy in the 1995 presidential elections at the head of the País Posible party alliance , which also entered into an alliance with the Coordinadora Democrática (Code). Toledo was chosen as the Alliance's top candidate. Although polls predicted him 11% of the vote, according to the official count, he only got 3.5% of the valid votes. The elections were won by the then incumbent President Alberto Fujimori with more than 62% of the vote.

Presidential election 2000 and 2001

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In the elections in 2000, Toledo again ran against Fujimori, this time at the head of a group he founded himself called Perú Posible . In an election marked by allegations of fraud and criticism from national and international observers, Toledo took a controversial second place with 40.3% of the vote compared to 49.8% for Fujimori. Since none of the candidates achieved an absolute majority, a second ballot had to bring the decision.

Based on the evidence of electoral fraud , Toledo declared on May 18, 2000 that he would not run for the second ballot if it was not postponed by two weeks and the deficiencies observed were corrected. Since Fujimori did not respond, Toledo withdrew his candidacy and asked his supporters to cast blank or invalid ballots. Still, in the second ballot, he officially received 25.6% of the vote, while 31% of the ballot papers were blank or invalid.

From now on, Toledo personified the peaceful resistance to the third term of the Fujimori government. On July 28, 2000 there was a day of national protests (known as “La marcha de los Cuatro Suyos”).

After Fujimori's resignation and self-elected exile in Japan, the President of Parliament Valentín Paniagua Corazao took over the office of President and scheduled new elections for May 2001.

Toledo’s reputation suffered from a paternity trial during this period. Especially after Jaime Bayly , an entertainer known and loved in Latin America and a former friend of Toledo, switched fronts and supported Toledo's daughter. He invited Toledo's daughter Zarai to his show, where she could present her position in conversation. Bayly's offer to pay for the DNA paternity tests was ultimately crucial to paternity recognition. The recognition of paternity in 2002 after his election as president of Peru settled the dispute and avoided a DNA sample. It is considered certain that if Toledo had to admit his paternity before the election, his election as president would have been seriously jeopardized, even when he had always described the paternity lawsuit as "manipulating the Fujimori government", even though the lawsuit before he took office Fujimoris was submitted.

In these elections Toledo ran against the former president Alan García Pérez and the lawyer Lourdes Flores . He won the first round with 36.5% of the votes, followed by García with 25.8%. In the run-off election, he prevailed with 52.5% of the valid votes and was the first indigenous Peruvian to take over the presidency.

Presidency

Alejandro Toledo's presidency was overshadowed by unrest and popular discontent due to the country's economic situation. During the election campaign, Toledo had announced a “break with the past”, especially with regard to the corruption and nepotism under the Fujimori regime. Many Peruvians had joined his movement in the hope of more jobs, and in order to alleviate dissatisfaction among his supporters, members of Perú Posible were given preference in filling public service positions.

In June 2002, the southern Peruvian city of Arequipa was paralyzed for a week by strikes and street riots against the privatization of two power stations in the region. It was the worst of its kind in Peru in half a century. The government did not expect such resistance on the ground and was forced to withdraw the privatization. Even if the macroeconomic indicators show sustained growth since Toledo took office (4.9% in 2002), Peru remained a poor country with half of the population living below the poverty line and 15% in very high poverty.

Further controversies and scandals concerned the president himself. His salary was initially around US $ 18,000 a month in a country where teachers do not earn more than US $ 100–200. In July 2004, Toledo asked government inspectors to check its bank accounts following allegations of corruption. In March 2005, accusations that his movement Perú Posible had forged thousands of signatures in order to be allowed to vote caused a scandal. A police investigation found that around 70% of the signatures were incorrect. Toledo’s sister was temporarily under house arrest because she was suspected of running a “forgery workshop”. Toledo itself was reluctant to cooperate with the Enlightenment leaders in the Peruvian Congress. Toledo's wife represents another scandal. She used the funds of a World Bank loan, which was intended to support the Afro-Indian population, in order to provide closest political friends with advisory contracts well above the average. The business relationships that exist between Toledo's wife and Israeli investor circles have never been fully clarified. Offshore companies that were initiated by the wife have become known in Panamá . Overall, the entire Toledo family is accused of exploiting privileges and office advantages.

When Alejandro Toledo was sworn in in 2001, he had the support of 59% of the country's population. In March 2005, his sympathy ratings had dropped to just 8% - the least popular among all Latin American leaders. At the end of his term in office in July 2006, however, he again achieved an approval rating of 42%. A direct re-election on April 9, 2006 was ruled out by a change in the law passed by Toledo.

Foreign policy

As president, Toledo began to normalize diplomatic relations with the Venezuelan government, which deteriorated under the interim government of his predecessor Valentín Paniagua because of the case of Vladimiro Montesinos . But when Toledo declared its explicit support for a failed coup in Venezuela, bilateral relations with Venezuela bottomed out and were broken off by Venezuela.

Corruption proceedings

Because of allegations of corruption in connection with the scandal surrounding the Brazilian construction company Organização Odebrecht , Toledo was wanted with an international arrest warrant from February 10, 2017 . The Peruvian judiciary is investigating Toledo for corruption , money laundering and conflict of interests in a particularly serious case. The imprisoned former Peru boss of the company accused the then President Toledo of having accepted a $ 20 million bribe from the Odebrecht construction company while the contract was awarded for the Interoceánica highway between São Paulo and Lima . The Peruvian authorities wanted to justify the detention request in more detail after the US refused to arrest Toledo on the grounds listed. Toledo was arrested in the United States on July 16, 2019.

Web links

Commons : Alejandro Toledo  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Peru's ex-president is stuck in the USA. Retrieved February 13, 2017 . 
2. ↑ Los peruanos del Lava Jato . In: El Comercio , accessed May 30, 2019.
3. ↑ NZZ, February 13, 2017
4. ↑ Peru's ex-president arrested in the USA Spiegel Online. Retrieved July 17, 2019.