9
violence had sharply declined. Also, in various polls, more than 70 percent of
respondents deemed the Fujimori government not merely "authoritarian" but downright
"dictatorial."
42
Relevant also is the jump in the percentage of Peruvians who considered the
country's elections fraudulent. Whereas in 1990 32 percent of Limeños judged Peru's
elections generally fraudulent, the figure in 1998 was 64 percent.
43
III. PERU'S 2000 ELECTIONS
As we have seen, despite the mounting evidence of the Fujimori government's
authoritarianism, U.S.-based experts continued to classify the regime as partially
democratic. As the 2000 elections loomed, it was clear to the government, the
opposition, and the international community that the elections were pivotal to subsequent
regime classification.
However, assessment of an election is more difficult than analysts traditionally
acknowledge.
44
First, most observers are experts in elections, not in the politics of
particular countries. They tend to hope that electoral processes will be free and fair and
consider their role to be, at least in part, the encouragement of a free and fair process.
45
Also, as independent as most observers try to be, they are aware that their mission is both
at the invitation of the host government and supported financially by other governments,
which are likely to feel entitled to contact with the observers.
Observers' checklists for freedom and fairness are numerous and thresholds are
difficult to establish. For example, a Polity criterion is: "If the incumbent uses his/her
official powers to…unduly influence the electoral process to benefit themselves or their
party."
46
Of course, what is the measurement of "unduly"? Another criterion is: "…
'irregularities,' while present, did not significantly affect the outcome of the vote…" What
is the measurement of "significantly"?
47
Observers tend to make these decisions as if they
were jurors in a trial, listening to the claims made by government and opposition and
considering the evidence advanced by the two sides. Just as in a U.S. trial, where the
defendant's prior record is not presented, the government's and opposition's prior records
are not taken into account.
48
This approach is problematical for the opposition in an electoral authoritarian
regime. The opposition's goal is to show that it does not have a fair chance to defeat the
government in the elections. But, especially without recourse to the historical record,
how can the opposition make its case? In actuality, the election is not a trial in which,
after the fact, responsibility for a crime is assessed and evidence has been carefully
pursued. Rather, it is an event in real time. The monitors decide if a crime has been
committed only at the end of the election process; at that point they often go home. As
in the Peruvian case, evidence of the crime--which of course the government is trying to
hide--may surface only months or years after the monitors have left.
In part for these reasons, in Latin America since the late 1980s, international
observers have rarely repudiated elections. Indeed, they have repudiated only the 1994
Convention